Fed’s Harker: better to pause rate hikes at the right time than risk overtightening

(Reuters) – The Federal Reserve should pause its interest rate hikes once its policy rate is at a sufficiently restrictive level to bring inflation on a path back down toward the central bank’s 2% goal, Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker said on Tuesday.

“As long as we are moving consistently and meaningfully to collapse inflation down, I think again we can continue to raise as we need to but also pause when it makes sense along that path,” Harker said to a conference in Philadelphia, repeating a view he advanced last week. “I just don’t think we need to go way up…and way down, that doesn’t make sense to me, policy wise.”

(Reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)