Digging deeper, though, it is important to recognize that part of the reason that the bond market would react so strongly to a sharp change in the short-term policy rate is that we have settled into a self-sustaining equilibrium in which the Fed tends to act gradually, and the market has come to expect that gradualism. In other words, the market has learned that a given increase in the federal funds rate at the beginning of a tightening cycle is typically followed by many more moves in the same direction, so there is naturally a multiplier effect on long-term rates of a given change in short-term rates. And that multiplier depends on the expected degree of gradualism: The more inertia there is in Fed policy, the more significant is any small move, and hence the larger is the multiplier. Thus, an expectation of gradualism on the part of the market makes it all the more important for the Fed to adjust the policy rate gradually, thereby fulfilling the market's beliefs.
This line of reasoning can be thought of as a piece of positive economics--that is, it may shed some light on why the world is as it is. But what, if any, are its normative implications? On the one hand, as I have emphasized, a gradualist approach to monetary policy is likely to be the best way for us to deliver on our mandate at any point in time, taking as given the market's expectations for Fed behavior. As such, it would probably not make sense, in the short run, for the Committee to deviate from this approach--with an unprepared market, the result might well be an undesirable degree of market turbulence, with attendant negative effects on the real economy.
On the other hand, there is clearly a time-consistency problem lurking here; the world we are in need not be the best of all possible worlds. In particular, it is interesting to think about an alternative long-run equilibrium in which the Fed has somehow developed a reputation for worrying less about the immediate bond-market effect of its actions and is known to react more aggressively to changes in economic conditions.10 In this alternative equilibrium, the market would expect the Fed to behave in a less gradualist fashion, so any given move in the funds rate would have a smaller multiplier effect on long rates. Thus, it is possible that in this alternative world, market volatility would be no higher than it is in our world, but the Fed would nevertheless be able to adjust policy more nimbly when it needed to.