The Fed Task Forces

Research evidence excerpt

The Fed Task Forces

Economics Research

20 July 2026 | 4:23PM EDT

US ECONOMICS ANALYST

n Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh has announced five Chairman’s Task Forces for David Mericle

+1(212)357-2619 |

Advancing Monetary Policy. We preview the task forces by analyzing Warsh’s david.mericle@gs.com

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

views, the likely views of the task force leaders, and what changes they might

Pierfrancesco Mei

recommend that the FOMC could potentially accept. +1(212)902-8809 |

pierfrancesco.mei@gs.com

n Communications: Warsh has argued that the Fed should provide less forward

guidance and has said little even about his view of the economy. The task force

leaders—economist Peter Fisher and former central bankers Arminio Fraga and

Mervyn King—have argued that central banks should be clear about their

reaction function but also about their level of uncertainty. The key practical

question is whether the Fed will change its Summary of Economic Projections

(SEP). The FOMC discussed changes to its communications last year and could

not reach an agreement, and we think Fed officials would likely be reluctant to

take a major step away from transparency by fully eliminating the SEP. But we

could imagine a smaller change, such as former Vice Chairman Don Kohn’s

proposal to stop publishing the median projection to avoid seeming to endorse

it.

n The Fed’s balance sheet: Warsh has criticized quantitative easing and the Fed’s

large balance sheet in the past and has called for a review of the ample-reserves

regime and the composition of asset holdings. The balance sheet task force will

be led by economists Karen Dynan, Raghuram Rajan, and Jeremy Stein. Stein has

argued that a large balance sheet supports financial stability, while Rajan has