Fedspeak

Article summary

In monetary policy of the United States, the term Fedspeak (also known as Greenspeak) is what Alan Blinder called "a turgid dialect of English" used by Federal Reserve Board chairs in making wordy, vague, and ambiguous statements. The strategy, which was used most prominently by Alan Greenspan, was used to prevent financial markets from overreacting to the chairman's remarks. The coinage is an intentional parallel to Newspeak. Fedspeak when used by Alan Greenspan is often called Greenspeak. An alternative definition of Greenspeak is "the coded and careful language employed by U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan." Edwin le Heron and Emmanuel Carre state that "Nowadays, 'Fedspeak' (Bernanke, 2004) means clear and extensive communication of the Fed's action." Chairman Ben Bernanke and Chairwoman Yellen have effected a major change in Fed communication policy departing from the obfuscation that characterized the previous three decades. In 2014 a new detailed level of Fed communication was dubbed Fedspeak 3.0. In 2018, Chairman Jerome Powell would begin press conferences with a summary statement in plain English, in contrast to his predecessors who would read lengthy prepared statements loaded with monetary policy jargon.…

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