At the most important meeting in years for the Federal Reserve, there will be a new face at the negotiating table: Beth Hammack, president of the Cleveland Fed. And no one outside the Fed has much idea of her current views on monetary policy.
Hammack, who spent the past 30 years at Goldman Sachs, joined the Fed’s regional bank last month after the retirement of its former chairwoman Loretta Mester.
At each Fed meeting, 12 members of its board vote, seven of whom are from the Fed’s Board of Governors. In addition to New York Fed President John Williams, the other votes come from an annually rotating panel of regional Fed presidents.
This year, the Cleveland Fed held one of 12 votes, meaning Hammack will vote to determine how much tapering the Fed proposes at its first-ever policy meeting.
It’s not entirely out of the question that it could end up voting for a quarter-point or half-point cut. Before the meeting, traders largely expected the latter, but a week ago, the majority thought the Fed would cut rates by a quarter-point. Recent market pressure could leave Fed officials split on what to do at the meeting, meaning each vote will carry even more weight.
