percent. according to the personal consumption expenditures index, the 12 - month change in core prices ( prices excluding the food and energy categories ) has been around 1 – 1 / 4 to 1 – 1 / 2 percent since the prior to 1999, the fomc released statements only after meetings at which the federal funds rate was changed. over time, the statements released by the fomc have become more informative about the committee ’ s views of the economy and policy. there are a number of additional transparency improvements that are less directly related to monetary policy communication, including detailed reports on liquidity facility and lending programs during the financial crisis, which can be found on the board ’ s website at www. federalreserve. gov / monetarypolicy / bst _ reports. htm. in addition, a full list of securities held in the system open market account portfolio is available on the federal reserve bank of new york ’ s website at www. newyorkfed. org / markets / soma / sysopen _ accholdings. html. given the benefits of transparency, central banks around the world have also greatly augmented their public communications over the past 20 years. recent papers measuring transparency across central banks include crowe and meade ( 2008 ) and dincer and eichengreen ( 2014 ). dincer and eichengreen ( 2014 ) conclude that almost all of the central banks around the world had greater transparency in 2010 than they did in 1998. see for example figure 1 in that paper. these measures of transparency cover a variety of factors, including the openness about policy objectives and economic data, disclosures about the procedures used in deliberations, the speed of such disclosures, and transparency about the operational aspects of meeting targets. bis central bankers ’ speeches beginning of 2013. at the september 2015 fomc meeting, participants saw inflation as very low this year but expected it to pick up notably next year and rise further in 2017. 15 although the presence of low inflation makes the traditional inflationary bias less of an immediate concern, actions that would compromise monetary policy independence would still be dangerous. the anchoring of inflation expectations has been a hard - fought product of the disinflation of the 1980s and subsequent federal reserve policy. today, even with low inflation, the balance of evidence suggests that survey - based measures of longer - term inflation expectations have likely remained fairly steady and consistent with our objective. the anchoring of these expectations is due in great part,

prudential regulation authority, as well as the council of financial regulators, whose chair is the governor of the reserve bank of australia and whose members are drawn from the central bank, the prudential authority, the australian securities and investments commission, and the treasury. these various approaches each have their own merits, but the ultimate stress test for any particular institutional structure will, of course, come as these new governance structures face the challenges of dealing with financial stress and potential financial crises. the structure of the fpc ensures that the bank of england is nearly fully independent with regard to financial stability. 25 the fed does not have that independence, even though it has been assigned the responsibility of helping to ensure financial stability. i have heard foreign central bankers argue, “ you can ’ t be independent in one function ( monetary policy ) and not independent in another ( financial stability ), without the nonindependence with respect to financial stability seeping over to weaken the independence of monetary policy. ” i do not believe this is correct – as proof, i think each of us feels and is more independent in some of the decisions we make about our lives than in others. thus, i think the fed retains its monetary policy independence despite its nonindependence with respect to financial stability policy. no doubt economists will long debate the appropriate institutional structure for financial stability authority. because financial markets and political institutions differ widely across economies and because historical accident affects the current situation in each, it seems unlikely that any single set of arrangements will be optimal in all cases. 26 in any event, as time and future potential crises go by – and may they be few and far between – there will be the use of the federal funds rate also affects particular sectors more than others — but that effect is softened by being spread over the entire economy. a few of the members – namely, the governor and deputy governors of the bank of england – are on both the monetary policy committee and the fpc, but the remaining members do not overlap. the fpc members are the governor, three of the deputy governors, the chief executive of the financial conduct authority, the bank ’ s executive director for financial stability strategy and risk, four external members appointed by the chancellor, and a nonvoting representative of the treasury. the current membership of the fpc is available on the bank of england ’ s website at www. bankofengland. co. uk / about / pages / people / fpc. aspx. the