The Financial Post reports in its Saturday edition that communication is crucial for central banking, balancing between saying too much and creating uncertainty. The Post's guest columnists Steve Ambler and Jeremy Kronick write that under Chairman Kevin Warsh, the Federal Reserve is opting for minimalism. The Bank of Canada, however, should continue communicating and start providing interest rate projections.
In a recent C.D. Howe Institute study Mr. Ambler and Mr. Kronick suggested how the BOC could tweak its communication strategy -- which on balance is in good shape. For one thing, they think it should put less emphasis on different measures of core inflation, which are hard to explain and interpret, and focus more on describing how it intends to get headline inflation back to target.
The new Fed chair seems to favour a different approach. In Mr. Ambler and Mr. Kronick's view, reducing communication reduces transparency and accountability, which are important complements to independence.
The Fed has a dual mandate: both an inflation target and "maximum employment." Clear communication helps the public understand the Open Market Committee's views of the current state of the trade-off between these objectives.
© 2026 Canjex Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.