(Reuters) - San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly on Monday downplayed the usefulness of yield curve control for U.S. monetary policy, saying that while it could be a "little helper" should other tools fail to deliver, it would not be a first choice.
"Targeting forward guidance and quantities on the balance sheet would be the policies I would want to use before we go to yield curve control" she told reporters on a conference call, saying that she is studying the costs and benefits of the approach.
If forward guidance and bond-buying aren't enough to keep borrowing costs low, "you can think of yield curve control as a little helper... but if we have very robust forward guidance then a lot of that movement in rates at the short end and even at the longer end, that gets done without having to go to yield curve control."