In my view, the reasons would include the lingering effects of the financial crisis, including lower potential growth for a time. Turning briefly to asset purchases, since last December’s FOMC meeting, the Committee has reduced asset purchases in a series of measured steps from a pace of $ billion a month to its current pace of $ billion per month.
If incoming information continues to broadly support the Committee’s expectation of ongoing improvement in labor market conditions and inflation moving back toward its longer-run objective, these measured steps would continue and asset purchases would come to an end in the fourth quarter of this year. Market expectations seem to be well aligned with this guidance. Thank you. I look forward to our discussion.