4 Jan. () –
The United States Federal Reserve (Fed) does not plan to lower interest rates during 2023, although it has already opened the door to considering an economic recession in the country as a “plausible” scenario, according to the minutes of its last meeting. of monetary policy, held in mid-December.
“No participant anticipated that it would be appropriate to start lowering interest rates in 2023. Participants generally noted that a tightening would be necessary until new data provided confidence that inflation was on a sustainable downward path toward 2%”, is clear from the document.
Despite this assessment, central bankers anticipate that the possibility of a recession “sometime in the next year” is a “plausible” alternative to the current base case. This is due to a combination of lower household spending, slower global economic growth and tough financial conditions.
The Fed anticipated at its December meeting that the pace of monetary policy tightening would slow over the next year due to the large increases in the price of money that had taken place in 2022. However, the Fed insisted that this It did not mean that the rate hikes were going to stop or even to undertake reductions.
According to the document, and looking forward, “participants considered that it would be appropriate to take into account the cumulative tightening of monetary policy, the lag with which monetary policy affects economic activity and inflation, and economic and financial developments “.
