After spending $2 trillion on government bonds in an effort to stimulate the economy, the U.S. Federal Reserve can hardly admit that it doesn’t know how, or even if, it worked. Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen on Wednesday came as close as she’s ever likely to get to accepting that quantitative easing is still poorly understood even by the experts. Explaining why the central bank prefers to set short-term rates rather than buy or sell stuff, she said it was because “we believe we understand pretty well what the effects [of...

Source: Wall Street Journal September 21, 2017 16:52 UTC