Interview of April 7, 2016
Dr. Grosse Steffen, since the end of 2008, the US policy interest rate was at the level it has only just reached in Europe, that is, at the zero lower bound. In December, the Federal Reserve decided to raise the interest rate in the US. What was the motivation for the ‘lift-off’?
The reason to increase the federal funds rate is that the US economy has been experiencing strong growth for some time now and the labor market has been recovering well. Although there has been controversial debate about the labor market argument after many people left the workforce, the Federal Open Market Committee decided that prospects were positive enough and that risks for the outlook were roughly balanced. [...]
The full interview with Christoph Grosse Steffen is published in DIW Economic Bulletin 14/2016. It is available for download as pdf document (PDF, 95 KB).
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