Frederic Mishkin leaves Fed

Governor Mishkin has been a strong central bank official at the Fed who was willing do the heavy research work necessary to make thoughtful responses to monetary problems. He has been at the forefront of monetary policy research for the last 25 years. He is one of the few Fed officials who is at perfect ease moving between academic research and policy issues. He has been a strong empiricist who also was an advocate for central bank transparency.

More recently, he has been one of the leaders in the movement to inflation targeting. Inflation targeting is now the mechanism used by most central banks around the world. In fact, the central bank who does not use inflation targeting I the exception. One of his most recent speeches has been on inflation ranges for central bank targeting called “Comfort Zones, Shmumfort Zones”. This is a clear presentation on the differences between point targets and inflation zones for monetary policy.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/mishkin20080327a.htm

The loss of MIshkin may be significant. He has been one of the advocates for following the loose monetary policy to help the housing crisis, so there may be a willingness to take positions which are more conservative and focused on inflation.