Fed’s Brainard: Fed should consider targeting longer-term interest rate levels in a future downturn

While speaking at the Richmond Community Listening Session, Fed Governor Lael Brainard argued that the Fed should consider targeting longer-term interest rate levels in a future downturn.   "Another idea I would like to hear more about involves targeting the yield on specific securities so that once the short-term interest rates we traditionally target have hit zero, we might turn to targeting slightly longer-term interest rates"”initially one-year interest rates, for example, and if more stimulus is needed, perhaps moving out the curve to two-year rates," Brainard explained in her prepared remarks.