This approach began to change in the 1990s, when the Federal Reserve began to regularly provide more information about how it saw the economic situation and how it would respond. Increasing the Fed’s transparency, openness, and accountability has been one of my top priorities as Chairman. A more open Fed, in my view, is both a more effective and more democratically legitimate institution.
Indeed, the complex challenges we face as a nation are best addressed in an environment of informed public discourse, which is only possible when policy decisions are made in as transparent a way as possible.