Fed’s Kashkari aims for Beige Book that looks beyond business
(Reuters) – If Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari gets his way, the U.S. central bank may soon be getting a more frequent earful from what he sees as an overlooked community: workers.
Kashkari on Wednesday said he is working with the staff of his bank to retool how they contribute to the Beige Book, the pulse-taking economic survey the 12 regional banks in the Federal Reserve system conduct ahead of the eight scheduled policy-setting meetings each year.
In Kashkari’s view, the voice of business is over-represented in Fed policy deliberations, he said during a virtual conference hosted by the Minneapolis Fed. One of the contributors to that is that the Beige Book features economic anecdotes collected almost exclusively from business contacts across each bank’s