FOMC Committee Decisions on Monetary Policy, 1970-1996

Henry W. Chappell's dataset examines Federal Open Market Committee decision-making. It uses formal voting records and detailed transcripts from the Memoranda of Discussion and FOMC Transcripts to construct data on individual members' policy preferences. The data covers two periods: 1970-1978 under Chairman Arthur Burns and 1987-1996 under Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Use Cases

• Estimating monetary policy reaction functions for individual FOMC members based on constructed preference data.
• Analyzing the role of majoritarian pressures and consensus in collective decision-making using voting records and deliberation summaries.
• Exploring the influence of political pressure on FOMC deliberations through narrative analysis inspired by anecdotal evidence.
• Investigating the power of the committee chairman in translating individual preferences into collective policy choices.

Strengths

• Data is derived from primary sources including formal voting records and detailed FOMC transcripts.
• Covers two distinct historical periods (1970-1978 and 1987-1996) under different chairmen, allowing for comparative analysis.
• Focus on individual member preferences provides a unique perspective on group decision aggregation.

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data may reflect temporal bias inherent to the two specific periods covered.

Provenance

Source

Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) records, including Memoranda of Discussion and FOMC Transcripts.

Collection Method

Constructed by authors from historical voting records and deliberation transcripts.

Time Range

1970-1978 and 1987-1996

Geography

United States