IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2022-105.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Voting Right Rotation, Behavior of Committee Members and Financial Market Reactions: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Ehrmann
  • Robin Tietz
  • Bauke Visser

Abstract

Which Federal Reserve Bank presidents vote on the U.S. monetary policy committee depends on a mechanical, yearly rotation scheme. Rotation is without exclusion: nonvoting presidents do attend and participate in the meetings of the committee. We test two hypotheses about the dependence of presidents' behavior on voting status. (i) Loss compensation: presidents compensate the loss of the right to vote with an increased use of speeches and contributions. (ii) Motivation: presidents complement the right to vote with an increased use of speeches and contributions. The evidence favors the motivation hypothesis. Also, in years that presidents vote, their speeches move financial markets less than in years they do not vote. We argue that this vote discount is consistent with presidents’ communication behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Ehrmann & Robin Tietz & Bauke Visser, 2022. "Voting Right Rotation, Behavior of Committee Members and Financial Market Reactions: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee," IMF Working Papers 2022/105, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2022/105
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=517963
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geoffrey M. B. Tootell, 1991. "Regional economic conditions and the FOMC votes of district presidents," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Mar, pages 3-16.
    2. repec:fip:fedgfn:2015-05-26 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Bauke Visser & Otto H. Swank, 2007. "On Committees of Experts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 337-372.
    4. Gnan, Phillipp & Rieder, Kilian, 2022. "The (Not So) Quiet Period: Communication by ECB Decision-makers during Monetary Policy Blackout Days," CEPR Discussion Papers 15735, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. 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.
    6. Riboni, Alessandro & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco, 2014. "Dissent in monetary policy decisions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 137-154.
    7. Nicholas A. Burk & Melanie Josselyn & Ellen E. Meade, 2015. "The FOMC Meeting Minutes: An Assessment of Counting Words and the Diversity of Views," FEDS Notes 2015-05-26-2, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. Paul Milgrom & John Roberts, 1986. "Relying on the Information of Interested Parties," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 18-32, Spring.
    9. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7683 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Kai Li & Hernán Ortiz‐Molina & Xinlei Zhao, 2008. "Do Voting Rights Affect Institutional Investment Decisions? Evidence from Dual‐Class Firms," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 37(4), pages 713-745, December.
    11. Tillmann, Peter, 2011. "Strategic forecasting on the FOMC," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 547-553, September.
    12. Otto H. Swank & Bauke Visser, 2013. "Is Transparency To No Avail?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 115(4), pages 967-994, October.
    13. Alessandro Riboni & Francisco J. Ruge-Murcia, 2010. "Monetary Policy by Committee: Consensus, Chairman Dominance, or Simple Majority?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 363-416.
    14. Job Swank & Otto H. Swank & Bauke Visser, 2008. "How Committees of Experts Interact with the Outside World: Some Theory, and Evidence from the FOMC," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(2-3), pages 478-486, 04-05.
    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. Gnan, Phillipp & Rieder, Kilian, 2023. "The (not so) quiet period: Communication by ECB decision-makers during monetary policy blackout days☆," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    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. Gnan, Phillipp & Rieder, Kilian, 2022. "The (Not So) Quiet Period: Communication by ECB Decision-makers during Monetary Policy Blackout Days," CEPR Discussion Papers 15735, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    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. Jan C. van Ours, 2022. "How Retirement Affects Mental Health, Cognitive Skills and Mortality; an Overview of Recent Empirical Evidence," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 22-050/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    2. Francisco Ruge‐Murcia, 2022. "How do central banks make decisions?," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(4), pages 1643-1670, November.
    3. Lähner, Tom, 2015. "Inconsistent voting behavior in the FOMC," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-546, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    4. Hamza Bennani & Davide Romelli, 2024. "Exploring the informativeness and drivers of tone during committee meetings: the case of the Federal Reserve," Post-Print hal-04670309, HAL.
    5. Eijffinger, Sylvester & Mahieu, Ronald & Raes, Louis, 2018. "Inferring hawks and doves from voting records," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 107-120.
    6. Fehrler, Sebastian & Hughes, Niall, 2014. "How Transparency Kills Information Aggregation (And Why That May Be A Good Thing)," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100440, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. 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.
    8. Jung, Alexander, 2016. "Have minutes helped to predict fed funds rate changes?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 18-32.
    9. Swank, Otto H. & Visser, Bauke, 2023. "Committees as active audiences: Reputation concerns and information acquisition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    10. Jung, Alexander, 2016. "Have FOMC minutes helped markets to predict FED funds rate changes?," Working Paper Series 1961, European Central Bank.
    11. Riboni, Alessandro & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco, 2019. "Mind-changes at the FOMC," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    12. Riboni, Alessandro & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco, 2014. "Dissent in monetary policy decisions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 137-154.
    13. Sebastian Fehrler & Niall Hughes, 2018. "How Transparency Kills Information Aggregation: Theory and Experiment," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 181-209, February.
    14. Bennani, Hamza & Farvaque, Etienne & Stanek, Piotr, 2018. "Influence of regional cycles and personal background on FOMC members’ preferences and disagreement," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 416-424.
    15. Jung, Alexander & Latsos, Sophia, 2015. "Do federal reserve bank presidents have a regional bias?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 173-183.
    16. 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.
    17. Cancelo, José Ramón & Varela, Diego & Sánchez-Santos, José Manuel, 2011. "Interest rate setting at the ECB: Individual preferences and collective decision making," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 804-820.
    18. Margarita Kirneva & Matias Nunez, 2021. "Voting by Simultaneous Vetoes," Working Papers 2021-08, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    19. Berk, Jan Marc & Bierut, Beata K., 2011. "Communication in a monetary policy committee," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 791-801.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    voting right rotation; monetary policy committee; central bank communication; FOMC; financial market response; motivation hypothesis; communication behavior; presidents vote; FOMC meeting; Fed president; voting status; Unemployment; Unemployment rate; Inflation; Financial sector; Asset prices;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies

    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:imf:imfwpa:2022/105. 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    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.