To Taper or not to Taper – that is the question

The US Federal Reserve announced on 18th December a tapering of its bond-buying program to $75bn a month beginning in January. This video from Paul Solman of PBS is a useful guide about the process and asks economists (including Robert Shiller) their opinion on the matter. Recently the Fed said that it would lower its monthly long-term Treasury bond purchases to $40 billion and mortgage-backed securities to $35 billion a month.