Yellen ally pours cold water on rule-based monetary policy

For much of her tenure as head of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen has been pressured by Republican lawmakers who want the U.S. central bank to adopt a monetary policy rule, a straightforward formula connecting unemployment and inflation to a benchmark interest rate. On Saturday a Yellen ally and former adviser at the Fed delivered a provocative retort: the economic models underpinning those simple rules don't work that well, and the best policy decisions come when central bankers look beyond t