IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2308.10131.html

Agree to Disagree: Measuring Hidden Dissent in FOMC Meetings

Author

Listed:
  • Kwok Ping Tsang
  • Zichao Yang

Abstract

Using FOMC transcripts and customized deep learning models, we quantify ``hidden dissent'', or disagreement in the FOMC that is unobserved in formal votes. We find hidden dissent to be prevalent and systematically driven by macroeconomic conditions like inflation and unemployment. It strongly correlates with divergent member projections (SEP) and measures of policy sub-optimality, reflecting heterogeneity among members in policy preferences. Furthermore, we show that the financial markets respond to the hidden dissent implied in FOMC minutes.

Suggested Citation

  • Kwok Ping Tsang & Zichao Yang, 2023. "Agree to Disagree: Measuring Hidden Dissent in FOMC Meetings," Papers 2308.10131, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2025.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2308.10131
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.10131
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Klodiana Istrefi, 2019. "In Fed Watchers Eyes: Hawks, Doves and Monetary Policy," Working papers 725, Banque de France.
    2. Daniel L. Thornton & David C. Wheelock, 2014. "Making sense of dissents: a history of FOMC dissents," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 96(3), pages 213-227.
    3. Benjamin Born & Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher, 2014. "Central Bank Communication on Financial Stability," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(577), pages 701-734, June.
    4. Bekaert, Geert & Hoerova, Marie & Lo Duca, Marco, 2013. "Risk, uncertainty and monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(7), pages 771-788.
    5. Victor Chernozhukov & Denis Chetverikov & Mert Demirer & Esther Duflo & Christian Hansen & Whitney Newey & James Robins, 2018. "Double/debiased machine learning for treatment and structural parameters," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 21(1), pages 1-68, February.
    6. Andrew Foerster, 2023. "The Evolution of Disagreement in the Dot Plot," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, vol. 2023(21), pages 1-6, August.
    7. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2008. "The FOMC versus the Staff: Where Can Monetary Policymakers Add Value?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 230-235, May.
    8. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    9. Malmendier, Ulrike & Nagel, Stefan & Yan, Zhen, 2021. "The making of hawks and doves," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 19-42.
    10. Carlo Rosa, 2016. "Fedspeak: Who Moves U.S. Asset Prices?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 12(4), pages 223-261, December.
    11. Stefano Nardelli & David Martens & Ellen Tobback, 2017. "Between hawks and doves: measuring Central Bank Communication," IFC Bulletins chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Big Data, volume 44, Bank for International Settlements.
    12. Melissa Dell, 2025. "Deep Learning for Economists," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 63(1), pages 5-58, March.
    13. Carlos Madeira & João Madeira & Paulo Santos Monteiro, 2026. "The Origins of Monetary Policy Disagreement: The Role of Supply and Demand Shocks," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 108(2), pages 355-371, March.
    14. Tobback, Ellen & Nardelli, Stefano & Martens, David, 2017. "Between hawks and doves: measuring central bank communication," Working Paper Series 2085, European Central Bank.
    15. Stephen Hansen & Michael McMahon & Andrea Prat, 2018. "Transparency and Deliberation Within the FOMC: A Computational Linguistics Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(2), pages 801-870.
    16. Hansen, Stephen & McMahon, Michael & Tong, Matthew, 2019. "The long-run information effect of central bank communication," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 185-202.
    17. Refet S Gürkaynak & Brian Sack & Eric Swanson, 2005. "Do Actions Speak Louder Than Words? The Response of Asset Prices to Monetary Policy Actions and Statements," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 1(1), May.
    18. Husted, Lucas & Rogers, John & Sun, Bo, 2020. "Monetary policy uncertainty," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 20-36.
    19. Victor Chernozhukov & Denis Chetverikov & Mert Demirer & Esther Duflo & Christian Hansen & Whitney Newey, 2017. "Double/Debiased/Neyman Machine Learning of Treatment Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 261-265, May.
    20. Alexopoulos, Michelle & Han, Xinfen & Kryvtsov, Oleksiy & Zhang, Xu, 2024. "More than words: Fed Chairs’ communication during congressional testimonies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    21. Hansen, Stephen & McMahon, Michael, 2016. "Shocking language: Understanding the macroeconomic effects of central bank communication," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(S1), pages 114-133.
    22. Swanson, Eric T., 2021. "Measuring the effects of federal reserve forward guidance and asset purchases on financial markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 32-53.
    23. Riboni, Alessandro & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco, 2014. "Dissent in monetary policy decisions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 137-154.
    24. Ball, Laurence, 1992. "Why does high inflation raise inflation uncertainty?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 371-388, June.
    25. Bordo, Michael & Istrefi, Klodiana, 2023. "Perceived FOMC: The making of hawks, doves and swingers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 125-143.
    26. Carvalho, Carlos & Nechio, Fernanda & Tristão, Tiago, 2021. "Taylor rule estimation by OLS," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 140-154.
    27. Jing Cynthia Wu & Fan Dora Xia, 2016. "Measuring the Macroeconomic Impact of Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(2-3), pages 253-291, March.
    28. Wang, Hui & Shen, Huayu & Tang, Xiaoyi & Wu, Zuofeng & Ma, Shuming, 2021. "Trade policy uncertainty and firm risk taking," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 351-364.
    29. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Tho Pham & Oleksandr Talavera, 2023. "The Voice of Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(2), pages 548-584, February.
    30. Laura Battaglia & Timothy Christensen & Stephen Hansen & Szymon Sacher, 2024. "Inference for Regression with Variables Generated from Unstructured Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 11119, CESifo.
    31. Hou, Xiaohui & Wang, Tengyu & Ma, Caoyuan, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty and corporate fraud," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 97-110.
    32. Shapiro, Adam Hale & Sudhof, Moritz & Wilson, Daniel J., 2022. "Measuring news sentiment," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 228(2), pages 221-243.
    33. George A. Kahn & Amy Oksol, 2018. "Understanding Hawks and Doves," Macro Bulletin, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue June 27, , pages 1-4, June.
    34. Agam Shah & Suvan Paturi & Sudheer Chava, 2023. "Trillion Dollar Words: A New Financial Dataset, Task & Market Analysis," Papers 2305.07972, arXiv.org.
    35. Lars Peter Hansen, 2021. "Uncertainty Spillovers for Markets and Policy," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 371-396, August.
    36. Jha, Manish & Liu, Hongyi & Manela, Asaf, 2021. "Natural Disaster Effects on Popular Sentiment Toward Finance," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(7), pages 2584-2604, November.
    37. Régis Barnichon & Geert Mesters, 2023. "A Sufficient Statistics Approach for Macro Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(11), pages 2809-2845, November.
    38. Bertsch, Christoph & Hull, Isaiah & Lumsdaine, Robin L. & Zhang, Xin, 2025. "Central bank mandates and monetary policy stances: Through the lens of Federal Reserve speeches," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 249(PC).
    39. Leombroni, Matteo & Vedolin, Andrea & Venter, Gyuri & Whelan, Paul, 2021. "Central bank communication and the yield curve," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(3), pages 860-880.
    40. Mikael Apel & Marianna Blix Grimaldi & Isaiah Hull, 2022. "How Much Information Do Monetary Policy Committees Disclose? Evidence from the FOMC's Minutes and Transcripts," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(5), pages 1459-1490, August.
    41. Adam Hale Shapiro & Daniel J Wilson, 2022. "Taking the Fed at its Word: A New Approach to Estimating Central Bank Objectives using Text Analysis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(5), pages 2768-2805.
    42. Athanasios Orphanides, 2001. "Monetary Policy Rules Based on Real-Time Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 964-985, September.
    43. Curti, Filippo & Kazinnik, Sophia, 2023. "Let's face it: Quantifying the impact of nonverbal communication in FOMC press conferences," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 110-126.
    44. Gordon, Matthew V. & Lunsford, Kurt G., 2024. "The effects of the Federal Reserve Chair’s testimony on interest rates and stock prices," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    45. Kurt G. Lunsford, 2020. "Policy Language and Information Effects in the Early Days of Federal Reserve Forward Guidance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2899-2934, September.
    46. Ang, Andrew & Piazzesi, Monika & Wei, Min, 2006. "What does the yield curve tell us about GDP growth?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 359-403.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Donato Masciandaro, 2026. "Monetary Policy and Taylor Reaction Functions: Business Cycles, Central Bank Governance and Central Bankers’ Preferences," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 26270, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Donato Masciandaro, 2026. "Monetary Policy and Taylor Reaction Functions: Business Cycles, Central Bank Governance and Central Bankers’ Preferences," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 26270, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    2. Istrefi, Klodiana & Odendahl, Florens & Sestieri, Giulia, 2023. "Fed communication on financial stability concerns and monetary policy decisions: Revelations from speeches," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    3. Chadha, Jagjit S. & Macchiarelli, Corrado & Goel, Satyam & Hantzsche, Arno & Mellina, Sathya, 2026. "Deciphering Delphic guidance: The Bank of England and geopolitical uncertainty," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    4. Parle, Conor, 2022. "The financial market impact of ECB monetary policy press conferences — A text based approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    5. Ahrens, Maximilian & Erdemlioglu, Deniz & McMahon, Michael & Neely, Christopher J. & Yang, Xiye, 2025. "Mind your language: Market responses to central bank speeches," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 249(PC).
    6. Ying, Shan & Sheen, Jeffrey & Gu, Xin & Wang, Ben Zhe, 2025. "Does monetary policy uncertainty moderate the transmission of policy shocks to government bond yields?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    7. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Tho Pham & Oleksandr Talavera, 2023. "The Voice of Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(2), pages 548-584, February.
    8. Bennani, Hamza & Romelli, Davide, 2024. "Exploring the informativeness and drivers of tone during committee meetings: The case of the Federal Reserve," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    9. Chen, Kairan & Granville, Brigitte & Matousek, Roman, 2026. "Decoding central bank communications with large language models," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    10. Juan Arismendi-Zambrano & Emmanuel Kypraios & Alessia Paccagnini, 2026. "Informativeness of the federal reserve chair communication’s sentiment on the monetary policy uncertainty," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 357(1), pages 633-677, February.
    11. Hubert, Paul & Labondance, Fabien, 2021. "The signaling effects of central bank tone," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    12. Carlos Madeira & João Madeira & Paulo Santos Monteiro, 2026. "The Origins of Monetary Policy Disagreement: The Role of Supply and Demand Shocks," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 108(2), pages 355-371, March.
    13. Fadda, Pietro & Hanifi, Rayane & Istrefi, Klodiana & Penalver, Adrian, 2025. "Central bank communication of uncertainty," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    14. Dooyeon Cho, 2026. "The Power of Voice: Monetary Policy and Cryptocurrency," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 26(1), March.
    15. Ehrmann, Michael & Tietz, Robin & Visser, Bauke, 2026. "Voting right rotation, speeches, and financial market reactions: Evidence from the U.S. federal open market committee," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    16. Aromí J. Daniel & Heymann Daniel, 2024. "Synthetic surveys of monetary policymakers: perceptions, narratives and transparency," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4707, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    17. Kanelis, Dimitrios & Kranzmann, Lars H. & Siklos, Pierre L., 2025. "The financial instability - Monetary policy nexus: Evidence from the FOMC minutes," Discussion Papers 13/2025, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    18. Daniel Aromí & Daniel Heymann, 2024. "Talk to Fed: a Big Dive into FOMC Transcripts," Working Papers 323, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    19. Hüpper, Florian & Kempa, Bernd, 2023. "Inflation targeting and inflation communication of the Federal Reserve: Words and deeds," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    20. Moreno-Pérez, Carlos & Minozzo, Marco, 2026. "Monetary policy uncertainty in Mexico: An unsupervised approach," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • C55 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Large Data Sets: Modeling and Analysis

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2308.10131. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.