In today's Wall Street Journal (page A1 in the print version), Greg Ip begins a long column on communication culture within the Federal Open Market Committee with this:
At Federal Reserve meetings under Alan Greenspan, the chairman would state his recommendations for interest rates. Then the 18 other policy makers would say if they agreed. They usually did.
I guess it depends on the meaning of "usually", but it is useful to remember that Mr. Greenspan did not always enjoy the free pass for his preferences that legend now endows to him. My colleague Mike Bryan has on his office wall a fairly detailed record of FOMC voting, going back to the 1960s. Here are a couple of facts:
-- Alan Greenspan became Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee in 1987.
-- The first year of his tenure in which there were no dissents was 2000.
-- The record at meetings in Mr. Greenspan's first 12 months:
Aug. 18, 1987: No dissents
Sept. 27, 1987: No dissents
Nov. 3, 1987: No dissents
Dec. 15, 1987: 2 dissents (Governors Johnson and Seger)
Feb. 9, 1988: No dissents
Mar. 29, 1988: 1 dissent (Governor Seger)
May 17, 1988: 2 dissents (Presidents Hoskins and Parry)
June 29, 1988: 3 dissents (Governors Angell, Kelly, and Seger)
Aug. 16, 1988: 1 dissent (President Hoskins)
-- In 1989 there wasn't a single meeting without at least one dissent.
-- Through 1990, 68% of meetings had at least one dissent.
-- Through the end of 1999, 47% of meetings had at least one dissent.
Did those dissents have any impact? That is an interesting question, deserving of serious analysis. But if members of the FOMC were indeed reluctant to buck the chairman's trend, it took them a good long time to show it.