美联储主席凯文·沃什想要重塑美联储的种种方式中，最不引人注目的或许影响最为深远：他正在削减央行每年做出利率决定的次数。
Of all the ways Chairman Kevin Warsh wants to remake the Federal Reserve, the least flashy may be the most lasting: He is cutting the number of interest-rate decisions the central bank makes each year.
周四发布的新日历显示了具体做法。美联储仍将一年召开八次会议，但只在其中七次会议上对利率进行表决。10月的会议将专门用于讨论战略，不进行利率表决，也不发布政策声明。到2028年，利率决定次数将进一步减少至六次。
A new calendar released Thursday shows how. The Fed will still meet eight times a year but will vote on rates only seven times. Its October meeting will be devoted to strategy, with no vote on rates and no policy statement. In 2028, it will move to six interest-rate decisions.
沃什在上月预告即将到来的改革时表示，调整后的会议日程“绝非仅仅是行政细节”。这是“让货币政策运行步入正轨的又一项变革”。沃什已经精简了声明和新闻发布会，停止提交预测，并启动了五个工作组，重新思考美联储的运作方式。从明年秋天起，定息会议将大约每两个月举行一次。
The revamped meeting schedule “is more than some administrative detail,” he said when previewing the forthcoming revamp last month. It is “yet another change to get the conduct of monetary policy on the right track.”Warsh has already shortened statements and news conferences, stopped submitting forecasts and launched five task forces to rethink how the Fed operates. Starting next fall, rate-setting meetings will be held roughly every two months.
沃什认为日历调整至关重要的原因 沃什长期主张，央行官员说话太多，过分强调最新的一条经济数据。他在2014年为英格兰银行撰写的评估报告中，建议将其每月一次的政策会议减少至每年六到八次。该行于2016年改为每年八次。
Why the calendar matters, according to Warsh Warsh has long argued that central bankers talk too much and overemphasize the most recent piece of economic data. In a 2014 review for the Bank of England, he recommended cutting its monthly policy meetings to between six and eight a year. The bank moved to eight in 2016.
[视频] 《华尔街日报》记者尼克·蒂米劳斯解读美联储最新声明中的关键句子 他在2017年达拉斯联储的一次活动上表示，官员们花在准备会议上的时间太多，“而没有足够时间做这件疯狂的事：深入思考正在发生的事情”。
[video] WSJ’s Nick Timiraos on the Key Sentence in the Fed’s Latest Statement Officials were doing too much meeting preparation “and not enough time doing this crazy thing: thinking hard about what’s happening,” he said at a 2017 Dallas Fed event.
一些经济学家表示，会议日历早就该更新了。德意志银行首席美国经济学家马修·卢泽蒂说，目前的会议节奏定于20世纪80年代初，当时官员更密切关注货币供应量，并围绕这些数据的发布以及主席向国会作证的时间来安排会议。
Some economists say the calendar has been ripe for a refresh. The current cadence was set in the early 1980s, when officials paid closer attention to the money supply and built meetings around those releases and the chair’s testimony to Congress, said Matthew Luzzetti, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank.
将会议频率改为每两个月一次，“让他们有机会在每次会议上完全标准化手中的数据集，”卢泽蒂说。他说，决策间隔多等两周的成本不大。
Changing that to meetings every two months “allows for an opportunity to completely standardize the set of data they have at each meeting,” Luzzetti said. The cost of waiting two extra weeks in between decisions is modest, he said.
沃什8月与乔治城大学经济学家吉森·义盛会面，后者在当月早些时候发布的一份工作论文中指出，联邦公开市场委员会（FOMC）每年举行六次例会，对美联储的效果与举行八次大致相当。他的模拟显示，八次会议产生的结果略好，但他得出结论认为，这种差异不足以抵消增加会议带来的负担。根据法律规定，联邦公开市场委员会每年至少须召开四次会议。
Warsh met in August with Georgetown University economist Masaaki Yoshimori, who argued in a working paper published earlier that month that six regular meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, would serve the Fed about as well as eight. His simulations found eight produced slightly better outcomes, but he concluded the difference didn’t justify the burden of extra meetings. By law, the FOMC must meet at least four times a year.
沃尔克的日程安排 部分美联储官员表示，虽然他们不认同沃什推动变革的紧迫感，但也未提出异议。里奇蒙德联储主席巴尔金本月表示，如果官员们在主要数据发布后而非发布前召开会议，将会有所帮助。例如，消费者价格指数（CPI）将在下个月会议后的第二天公布。
Volcker’s calendar Some Fed officials have suggested that while they didn’t share Warsh’s sense of urgency to make the change, they haven’t objected. Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin said this month it would help if officials met after major data releases rather than just before them. The consumer-price index, for instance, comes out the day after next month’s meeting.
但巴尔金表示，新的节奏可能带来意外。随着利率决策间隔长达10周，美联储可能需要以大于传统的25个基点的幅度调整利率。根据1980年确立现行日程的备忘录，当时的主席保罗·沃尔克认为八周的间隔“过长”。
But a new rhythm could bring surprises, Barkin said. With as long as 10 weeks between rate decisions, the Fed might need to move rates in bigger steps than the traditional quarter point. Paul Volcker, chairman when the current schedule was adopted, considered an eight-week interval “unduly long,” according to the 1980 memo outlining it.
瑞典央行的做法 其他央行的做法不一。瑞典央行（Riksbank）从2020年起将会议次数从每年六次减至五次，理由是每年编制六份完整的经济预测作用不大，腾出的人力可用于更深入的研究和外联工作。四年后，在疫情后通胀飙升的背景下，它扭转方向，将会议次数增至八次。它表示，更多的决策机会将使其能更快调整政策，并使其与大多数同行保持一致。
What Sweden’s central bank did Other central banks have gone both ways. Sweden’s Riksbank cut its meetings to five a year from six starting in 2020, arguing that producing six full economic forecasts a year added little and that the freed-up staff time could go to deeper research and outreach. Four years later, after the postpandemic inflation surge, it reversed course and moved to eight meetings. It said more chances to make decisions would let it adjust policy faster and bring it in line with most of its peers.
美联储减少利率决策次数将如何改变其运作对于美联储而言，减少利率决策次数理论上意味着官员们的评论会减少，因为他们通常会在决策前后四处发表演讲和接受采访。将利率决策次数削减四分之一，将减少引导市场预期的机会。
How fewer interest-rate decisions would change the Fed For the Fed, fewer rate decisions could, in theory, mean less commentary from officials who often fan out to give speeches and interviews in the run-up to or aftermath of decisions. Cutting the number of rate decisions by a quarter would leave fewer opportunities to steer expectations.
卢泽蒂表示，这并不意味着投资者会减少对这些决策的关注。相反，如果决策次数变少，每一次决策可能会成为更重大的事件，从而略微提高官员们就这些决策发表言论的重要性。
That doesn’t mean investors would pay any less attention to them, said Luzzetti. If anything, each decision could become a bigger event when there are fewer of them, marginally raising the stakes for whatever officials have to say about them.