We're about to learn more about what Federal Reserve officials are thinking for the year ahead.

For Marketplace, I'm Nova Saffo, in for David Brancaccio.

Tomorrow, the Federal Reserve is scheduled to release the minutes from its last interest rate setting meeting a couple of weeks ago.

We know policymakers were unusually divided, and investors will be looking for

more clues as to what Fed officials were thinking and how that might impact the central

bank's direction in the year ahead. Joining me for more on this is Julia Coronado, founder and

president of macro policy perspectives and a professor at the University of Texas, Austin. Welcome

back. Good morning. So when we say

Fed policymakers were divided, would you walk us through what that means? Divided how?

Well, we had people who were dissenting against the decision to cut rates a quarter point,

both in favor of lower rates and in favor of no cuts at all. And we will

learn more about the dimensions of that disagreement when the minutes are released this week.

The concern is that inflation is still running above their target, but the labor market is still

cooling. And they're supposed to keep both of

those things in check. So there's reasonable disagreements on either side. And what will you be

looking for in the minutes that get released tomorrow? Well, what the minutes allow us to do is sort of

count how many people are in each camp.

I think it's going to be clear that there are more people concerned about higher inflation

than advocating for more rate cuts.

And that ultimately, as a collective body, they are not in a rush to make decisions from here. They have

cut rates three times, and they're going to take their time and gather more data to see which

of these tensions is greater, and that will determine the direction of policy.

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