ABSTRACT
We find that Federal Reserve Bank presidents’ regional bias in their dissenting interest rate votes in the Federal Open Market Committee follows an electoral cycle. Presidents put more weight on their district’s economic environment during the year prior to their (re-)election relative to nonelection years.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Alternative drivers of dissenting votes include different consensus building capabilities of the chairman (El-Shagi and Jung Citation2015), career characteristics (Chappell, Havrilesky, and McGregor Citation1995; Harris, Levine, and Spencer Citation2011) or the nature of the meeting (Meade and Sheets Citation2005).
2 These results are mainly driven by dissents in favour of monetary tightening. 86% of all dissents cast by Bank presidents are in favour of monetary tightening, while only 14% are in favour of monetary easing.