Odd Lots · Friday, August 28, 2026
Austan Goolsbee believes that traditional Fed communication tools like the dot plot and press conferences should be re-evaluated in the current economic environment. He expressed skepticism about the predictive accuracy of the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) and suggested that the dot plot, while potentially useful for understanding committee members' worldviews, doesn't always function as a clear reaction function due to differing assumptions.
“I don't like any time the members of the Fed are writing down what they're interpreting as predictions that don't turn out to be true, I think you pay a little price in terms of credibility, that people can go back and look and say, wait, aren't you the bozos who said that by now, whatever, inflation would be 2%, the unemployment rate would be something? So that it asks about one year, two years, three years ahead and the long run, Do we really need all of that?”
“And in a way, the dot plot could serve as that, except. the assumptions are not tied to the rate of the dots so to quote the median inflation and the median rate but that's not necessarily the same person right and so it's it doesn't actually serve as a reaction function so i think there's a lot of things you could do with the SEP.”
“All of that should be on the table. We have this outside task force headed by outside folks. that's contemplating a lot of these issues about communication, I think it's healthy. Let's rethink all of those.”