Policy Preferences of FOMC Members as Revealed by Dissenting Votes
通过分析FOMC会议中的异议投票记录，考察银行行长与理事会成员的政策偏好差异、不确定性对异议的影响、不同主席时期的异议模式以及政治压力对货币政策的影响。
THE COMPOSITION OF THE FEDERAL OPEN MARKET COMMITTEE, the ability to predict the effect of policy decisions on economic and f1nancialvariables, and political influence from the White House and the Congress are all potentially significant determinants of monetary policy decisions. This study uses the record of dissenting votes from Federal Open Market Committee meetings to consider the relevance of these influences. Tests for differences between voting patterns of bank presidents versus members of the Board of Governors, and differences during various historical periods provide insight into four questions: (1) Are the policy preferences of bank presidents different from those of the members of the Board? (2) Does uncertainty about the economic and financial results of policy actions influence the level of dissent? (3) Is there a difference in the pattern of dissent under different chairmen? and (4) Is there effective political influence on monetary policymakers? The legitimacy of district bank presidents serving on the FOMC has been challenged in the courts and the legislature. Challengers fear that district bank presidents, who serve without executive or legislative approval, prefer policy that produces lower inflation and higher unemployment, relative to the policy preferred by members of the Board who are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Rogoff (1985) argues that, in the presence of market distortions, it is better for society to have central bankers who attach a larger weight than the society's