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Is There a Limit on FOMC Dissents? Evidence from the Greenspan Era

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  • Petra Gerlach-Kristen
  • Ellen E. Meade

Abstract

Dissents in the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) are relatively rare. Is this because policymakers late in the voting order are deterred from dissenting? Dissents became infrequent during Chairman Greenspan's tenure, arguably rejecting his growing influence. We show that policymaker dissents also were driven by the alphabetical voting order in the FOMC, the number of dissents already cast, whether the policymaker in question is a Board member, and inlation. Because dissents help forecast future changes in the Federal funds rate, this implicit constraint on dissents may be ineffcient in that it prevents the communication of useful information to financial markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Petra Gerlach-Kristen & Ellen E. Meade, 2010. "Is There a Limit on FOMC Dissents? Evidence from the Greenspan Era," Working Papers 2010-16, American University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:amu:wpaper:2010-16
    DOI: 10.17606/swpj-wv97
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    Cited by:

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    2. Hayo, Bernd & Neuenkirch, Matthias, 2013. "Do Federal Reserve presidents communicate with a regional bias?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 62-72.
    3. Sirchenko, Andrei, 2010. "Policymakers' Votes and Predictability of Monetary Policy," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt8qj3z3qg, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    4. El-Shagi, Makram & Jung, Alexander, 2015. "Does the Greenspan era provide evidence on leadership in the FOMC?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 173-190.
    5. Bernd Hayo & Pierre-Guillaume Méon, 2013. "Behind closed doors: Revealing the ECB’s decision rule," Post-Print CEB, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 37, pages 135-160, October.
    6. Riboni, Alessandro & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco, 2014. "Dissent in monetary policy decisions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 137-154.
    7. Sylvester Eijffinger & Ronald Mahieu & Louis Raes, 2016. "Monetary Policy Committees, Voting Behavior and Ideal Points," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1628, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    8. Hamza Bennani, 2016. "Measuring Monetary Policy Stress for Fed District Representatives," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 63(2), pages 156-176, May.
    9. Baerg, Nicole Rae & Lowe, Will, 2015. "Estimating Central Bank Preferences Combining Topic and Scaling Methods," MPRA Paper 61534, University Library of Munich, Germany.
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    11. Tillmann, Peter, 2021. "Financial markets and dissent in the ECB’s Governing Council," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    12. Roman Horvath & Katerina Smidkova & Jan Zapal, 2012. "Is the U.S. Fed Voting Record Informative about Future Monetary Policy?," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 62(6), pages 478-484, December.
    13. 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.
    14. Matthias Neuenkirch, 2013. "Predicting Bank of England's asset purchase decisions with MPC voting records," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(13), pages 1275-1278, September.
    15. Bennani, Hamza & Kranz, Tobias & Neuenkirch, Matthias, 2018. "Disagreement between FOMC members and the Fed’s staff: New insights based on a counterfactual interest rate," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 139-153.
    16. Peter Tillmann, 2020. "Financial Markets and Dissent in the ECB’s Governing Council," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202048, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    17. Horváth, Roman & Jonášová, Júlia, 2015. "Central banks' voting records, the financial crisis and future monetary policy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 229-243.
    18. Mikael Apel & Carl Andreas Claussen & Petra Lennartsdotter & Øistein Røisland, 2015. "Monetary Policy Committees: Comparing Theory and "Inside" Information from MPC Members," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 11(4), pages 47-89, December.
    19. Hamza Bennani & Tobias Kranz & Matthias Neuenkirch, 2017. "Disagreement Between the FOMC and the Fed's Staff: New Insights Based on a Counterfactual Interest Rate," Research Papers in Economics 2017-10, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    20. Ruge-Murcia, Francisco & Riboni, Alessandro, 2017. "Collective versus individual Decision-Making: A case study of the Bank of Israel Law," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 73-89.
    21. Guido Schultefrankenfeld, 2020. "Appropriate monetary policy and forecast disagreement at the FOMC," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 223-255, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Central banking; Monetary policy; Voting order; FOM;
    All these keywords.

    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
    • E65 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes

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