Hinting at the actual timing of the policy change is generally inadvisable. If such a hint were made, market participants would carry out transactions based not on their own views of the economy and prices but in response to the central bank's hint, and this would result in a breakdown of the two-way exchange of information.
In particular, we use the definition of the neutral rate of interest that Chair Yellen used in a 2015 speech: “the real rate consistent with the economy achieving maximum employment and price stability over the medium term,” which, in an elaboration in a footnote, is said to be “usually thought of as independent of the cyclical disturbances that routinely buffet the economy . .