Beyond the task of describing the new policies, extensive new communication was needed to justify these unconventional policy actions and convincingly connect them to the Federal Reserve’s employment and inflation objectives. The best known of these unconventional policies is large-scale asset purchases, commonly known as quantitative easing.
Starting in late 2008 and continuing through today, the Federal Reserve has purchased longer-term government agency debt securities, agency-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities, and longer-term Treasury securities that have added about $ trillion to its assets. These purchases were intended to, and I believe have, succeeded in significantly lowering longer-term interest rates and raising asset prices to help further the Federal Reserve’s economic objectives.