At Jackson Hole last month, all eyes were on Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh in his first speech at the Fed’s annual conference. But all thoughts were about the Fed’s rate decision next week. Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard economist who was at Jackson Hole as a lunchtime speaker, offered this advice to a New York Times journalist: “If they can possibly put it off till after the midterms, it would be good for the institution.” Given President Donald Trump’s attacks on the Fed, he asked: “If you’re trying to preserve Fed independence, are you preserving it better by spitting in his face, or are you preserving it better by laying low and waiting until the winter?” But playing politics to preserve independence is a terrible strategy for the Fed. And one of the best explanations comes from a junior economist at the Fed who wrote a paper, now considered foundational to the study of central bank credibility, back in 1983. His name was … Kenneth Rogoff. Using a stylized model, Rogoff showed that economic outcomes, on average, would be better if the head of the central bank were m