Charles Evans

Charles Evans served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago from 2007 to 2023. He became known for advocating that the Fed explicitly tie its forward guidance to specific economic thresholds — a concept that became the "Evans Rule." Instead of promising to keep rates low until a specific date, Evans argued the Fed should commit to low rates until unemployment fell below 6.5% or inflation exceeded 2.5%. This state-contingent approach was adopted by the FOMC in 2012 and represented a significant evolution in how the Fed communicated its policy intentions. He received his PhD in economics from Carnegie Mellon University and joined the Chicago Fed as an economist before eventually becoming its president. His research focused on monetary policy transmission, business cycle dynamics, and the role of information rigidities in the economy. At the Chicago Fed, he oversaw substantial economic research output and regularly published thoughtful pieces on monetary policy strategy. He was a voting FOMC member on a rotating basis and consistently advocated for state-contingent rather than calendar-based guidance, arguing that the former better communicates the Fed's reaction function. His "Evans Rule" concept influenced not just the Fed's 2012 guidance but also subsequent discussions at other central banks about how to make forward guidance credible and informative.