The Federal Reserve has brought transparency to their decisions. The famous “blue dots” which show visually each FOMC voting member’s forecast for rates provides insight into their thinking, even if it doesn’t attach names to each dot. We’ve come a long way from Alan Greenspan’s Senate testimony, “Since becoming a central banker, I have learned to mumble with great incoherence. If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said.”

Transparency has removed the mystique. It’s now clear that the Fed doesn’t know much more than the rest of us about the economy. They’re also only average forecasters. Ever since the blue dots laid out the likely path of short term rates, which the Fed largely controls, they’ve consistently overestimated where they would set rates. It’s been a source of some amusement – if they can’t even forecast their own actions with accuracy, how can they forecast the economy?

Bond investors long ago concluded that rates would stay lower for longer than the FOMC thought. Ten-year treasury yields approximately reflect the bond market’s expectation for short-term rates over the next decade. If the FOMC’s thinking aligns with investors, the Fed’s long run forecast of the Federal Funds rate should be similar to the ten year yield. This is the neutral rate, the equilibrium that they regard as being neither accommodative nor restrictive. Historically, it was believed to be around 2% above inflation, for a “real” rate of 2%. Since the inflation target is itself around 2%, 4% was held to be the equilibrium Fed funds rate.

As the Fed provided greater transparency, it revealed a yawning gap between their thinking and that of bond buyers. The bond market turned out to be right, and low treasury yields correctly reflected that short term rates would rise very slowly.

Interestingly though, the Fed’s equilibrium rate also began to slide lower. Since their inflation target of 2% hasn’t changed, it means their equilibrium real rate has dropped to only 1%.