Alan Greenspan's grip at the Fed has tightened significantly since 11 September and the uncertainty that followed has made it harder for committee members to step out of line
Trolling for a column topic, I came upon a voting history for the Federal Reserve's policy setting committee on Stone & McCarthy Research's service on the Bloomberg terminal. The first thing I noticed was that dissent had gone the way of the Dodo bird. Including the eight scheduled meetings a year and any inter-meeting policy adjustments, there were no dissents this year, three in 2001, none in 2000 and two in 1999. Compare that with the 11 dissents in 1992, seven in 1993, five in 1994 and six in 1998. The question, then, is this: Has a stable inflation environment contributed to a mor...
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