On-the-Ground Insights: How a Federal Reserve President Stays Current

Key takeaways

• Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack meets frequently with people from businesses, universities, and other organizations across our district.
• These conversations allow her to gather on-the-ground insights about the economy in our part of the country.
• These insights help President Hammack bring the region’s unique perspective into national monetary policy discussions—a benefit of the Federal Reserve’s regional structure.

Video summary

Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack explains some of the helpful insights she’s gathered as she visits communities around the Fourth District.

These insights, combined with understanding what economic models and empirical data are suggesting, help her to get an accurate picture of the economy. This informs the direction of the work at the Cleveland Fed and President Hammack’s view on the appropriate stance for monetary policy.

Full transcript

Beth M. Hammack:

One of my favorite parts of this job has been getting out in the community and really engaging with people in the region, getting to hear their insights and their perspectives. Whether it's universities, businesses, individuals, employees, we want to understand how the economy is working for all individuals. We want to understand how all the residents, all the employees, even children, are experiencing things and what those opportunities look like. Our mission is to provide economic opportunity and economic growth for all.

I'm traveling around the district, whether it be Toledo, Columbus, Cincinnati, Lexington, Wooster, all across the Fourth District, to really understand the experiences of individuals and businesses. This allows me to gain on-the-ground insights about what's going on in the economy, across the Fourth District, so that when I go to Washington, DC, I can help represent the Fourth District perspective about what's going on in Ohio and how businesses and communities are faring in the economy here.

That's really important, given the Fed's decentralized structure. We have 12 regional Reserve Banks across the country, and so, each one of us bank presidents, when we show up, tries to bring a bit of that flavor of what's going on for the economy in our region. On-the-ground insights to me, is sitting down and having conversations with these businesses and community leaders. So, I like to ask them about how they're seeing demand for their business, how they're seeing pricing pressures, are they able to charge more? Are they seeing labor issues? Are they able to find the talent that they need to fulfill their workforce and to make sure their business continues to grow?

One of the visits recently, we went to see the NASA Glenn facility in Cleveland. It's a real anchor and it's a real magnet, I'd say, for scientific talent. And they're working on both development R&D for the next generation of things that may go out to space, but they're also working on innovations with local companies. They've designed non-pneumatic tires in partnership with Goodyear, and so they're taking advantage of the region that we're in to really ensure that they have the best ideas, the best innovations, and are contributing to the local economy.

One of the things I love about the Fourth District is it's really a microcosm of the country. When you think about it, we've got manufacturing, we've got rural areas and farming, healthcare and education are large parts of our environment, we've got energy production, and so we have a little bit of everything in terms of what the overall US is experiencing. And so, getting a picture on what's happening in each of those different areas from a business perspective, gives me a clear view of how each different type of business, each different sector, is adapting to the economy and adapting to new policies.