Investing.com - Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen said Thursday the central bank remains on track to gradually raise interest rates if the economy continued to evolve as expected.
The level of the equilibrium, or neutral, fed funds rate "is quite low," she said. "So yes, there is accommodation in the monetary policy that we have, but we think a gradual path of rate increases will be appropriate."
Yellen added, though, "monetary policy is not on any preset course" and she reiterated the central bankers mantra that any decision to raise rates will be data dependent.
"We will watch very closely what is happening in the economy and adjust policy as appropriate," Yellen said.
Yellen also defended the decision by the Federal Open Market Committee to raise rates in December from the zero lower bound where it had been since December 2008.
"We indicated that we thought the path of rate increases would be gradual, and that remains our best guess, and expectation, that if the economy continues on the path it's on, of recovery, then further increases will be justified," she said.
Yellen spoke on a panel with the three other living former Fed chairs Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker.