Publicity of Debate and the Incentive to Dissent: Evidence from the US Federal Reserve

Ellen Meade and David Stasavage

Economic Journal, 2008, vol. 118, issue 528, 695-717

Abstract: Transparency in committee decision making may have clear benefits by making members more accountable to outside observers. We consider one potential cost: the possibility that publishing records of deliberations will make members more reluctant to offer dissenting opinions. We construct a model that compares incentives for members with 'career concerns' to voice dissent when deliberations occur in public or in private. We test the model using an original dataset based on deliberations of the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee, asking whether the FOMC's 1993 decision to begin releasing transcripts of its meetings has altered incentives for dissent. We find evidence that this is indeed the case. Copyright © 2008 The Author(s).

Date: 2008
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Working Paper: Publicity of Debate and the Incentive to Dissent: Evidence from the US Federal Reserve (2004)
Working Paper: Publicity of debate and the incentive to dissent: evidence from the US federal reserve (2004)
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