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The FOMC: preferences, voting, and consensus

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Abstract

In this paper, the author develops and uses an original dataset collected from the internal discussion of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy committee (the Federal Open Market Committee [FOMC] transcripts) to examine questions about the Committee's behavior. The data show that Chairman Alan Greenspan's proposals, after Committee discussion, were nearly always adopted unmodified in the formal vote. Despite the external appearance of consensus with little disagreement over decisions and an official dissent rate of 7.5 percent, the data reveal that the rate of disagreement in internal Committee discussions was quite high-on the order of 30 percent for discussions of the short-term interest rate. And, under the assumption that FOMC voters assigned a higher priority to their preferences for the short-term interest rate than for the bias in the policy directive, it can be shown that this bias was important for achieving consensus, which supports and extends the results of Thornton and Wheelock (2000). Thus, the novel dataset described in this paper helps to shed some light on the internal workings of the FOMC in the Greenspan years.

Suggested Citation

  • Ellen E. Meade, 2005. "The FOMC: preferences, voting, and consensus," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 87(Mar), pages 93-101.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlrv:y:2005:i:mar:p:93-101:n:v.87no.2,pt.1
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    1. Daniel L. Thornton, 2005. "When did the FOMC begin targeting the federal funds rate? what the verbatim transcripts tell us," Working Papers 2004-015, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    2. Kalyvitis, Sarantis & Michaelides, Alexander, 2001. "New evidence on the effects of US monetary policy on exchange rates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 255-263, May.
    3. James D. Hamilton & Oscar Jorda, 2002. "A Model of the Federal Funds Rate Target," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(5), pages 1135-1167, October.
    4. Meade, Ellen E & Sheets, D Nathan, 2005. "Regional Influences on FOMC Voting Patterns," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(4), pages 661-677, August.
    5. Ben S. Bernanke & Ilian Mihov, 1998. "Measuring Monetary Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 869-902.
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