In Jackson Hole, Jerome Powell gave his first speech as Fed Chairman. It was little more than a defense of Fed policy.

In the Jackson Hole Wyoming symposium, Jerome Powell discussed Monetary Policy in a Changing Economy. Here are some snips:

Thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. Fifteen years ago, during the period now referred to as the Great Moderation, the topic of this symposium was “Adapting to a Changing Economy.” In opening the proceedings, then-Chairman Alan Greenspan famously declared that “uncertainty is not just an important feature of the monetary policy landscape; it is the defining characteristic of that landscape”.

In keeping with the spirit of this year’s symposium topic–the changing structures of the economy–I would also note briefly that the U.S. economy faces a number of longer-term structural challenges that are mostly beyond the reach of monetary policy. For example, real wages, particularly for medium- and low-income workers, have grown quite slowly in recent decades. Economic mobility in the United States has declined and is now lower than in most other advanced economies. Addressing the federal budget deficit, which has long been on an unsustainable path, becomes increasingly important as a larger share of the population retires. Finally, it is difficult to say when or whether the economy will break out of its low-productivity mode of the past decade or more, as it must if incomes are to rise meaningfully over time.

These questions strike me as representing the two errors that the Committee is always seeking to avoid as expansions continue–moving too fast and needlessly shortening the expansion, versus moving too slowly and risking a destabilizing overheating.

I see the current path of gradually raising interest rates as the FOMC’s approach to taking seriously both of these risks. While the unemployment rate is below the Committee’s estimate of the longer-run natural rate, estimates of this rate are quite uncertain. The same is true of estimates of the neutral interest rate. We therefore refer to many indicators when judging the degree of slack in the economy or the degree of accommodation in the current policy stance. We are also aware that, over time, inflation has become much less responsive to changes in resource utilization.

While inflation has recently moved up near 2 percent, we have seen no clear sign of an acceleration above 2 percent, and there does not seem to be an elevated risk of overheating. This is good news, and we believe that this good news results in part from the ongoing normalization process, which has moved the stance of policy gradually closer to the FOMC’s rough assessment of neutral as the expansion has continued.