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By Christopher Condon and Piotr SkolimowskiFederal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell won’t be kept company by his European Central Bank and Bank of Japan counterparts at this year’s Jackson Hole policy symposium, with Mario Draghi and Haruhiko Kuroda’s names both missing from the list of attendees.
Other highlights include confirmation that none of the ECB’s executive board members will make the trip to the Kansas City Fed’s annual central banker retreat in Wyoming’s remote Grand Teton National Park.
Policy makers gather against a backdrop of strong U.S.
growth though the global economic outlook is less rosy.
President Donald Trump’s trade war threatens China, while Turkey and other vulnerable emerging markets have been buffeted by financial market turmoil.
Trump has also turned his ire on the Fed chief, who he picked, for raising interest rates.
Powell will be joined by both current Fed governors, Lael Brainard and Randal Quarles, as well as Fed governor nominee Marvin Goodfriend.
All 11 current regional Fed presidents will be there.
The San Francisco Fed has a vacancy at the top.
Investors will focus on Powell’s speech at 10 a.m.
New York time Friday on monetary policy in a changing economy for confirmation of an interest-rate increase at September’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.
Trump might complain about rate hikes, but minutes released Wednesday of U.S.
central bankers’ policy deliberations at their last meeting showed they were on track to move in September.
The conference’s formal theme is the implications of increasing market concentration and what it means for competition, consumers and workers if a a few superstar firms such as Amazon.com Inc.
control ever-larger market shares in many industries.
Amazon chief economist Patrick Bajari has been invited.
Here’s what happened on Thursday:Two regional Federal Reserve bank chiefs say they favor further interest-rate increases and Trump criticism wouldn’t influence U.S.
central bank policy.Powell’s Speech Title Mirrors 1998 Paper Reflecting Same DebateJackson Hole History Suggests Market Calm to Follow Powell DebutFed Staff Paper Warns Officials Not to Ignore Low Unemployment
