Deliberating American Monetary Policy: A Textual Analysis

537 Pages·2013·7.361 MB·English

by  Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey

Deliberating American Monetary Policy

Deliberating American Monetary Policy
A Textual Analysis
Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey
with assistance and advice from Andrew Bailey
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2013 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schonhardt-Bailey, Cheryl, 1961 –
Deliberating American monetary policy : a textual analysis / Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-01957-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Monetary policy — United States — History. 2. United States — Economic policy.
I. Title.
HG540.S36 2013
339.5'30973 — dc23
2013005452
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
to Samuel and Hannah,
for distracting us with laughter and playfulness,
since there is more to life than work

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction: Why Deliberation? 1
2 Deliberation in Theoretical Perspective 37
3 Deliberation in the FOMC 57
4 Congressional Committees and Monetary Policy 197
5 In Their Own Words — Perspectives from the FOMC
and Congressional Banking Committees 361
6 Does Deliberation Matter for Monetary Policy-Making? 455
Notes 469
Bibliography 481
Index 493
Additional materials (available at http://mitpress.mit.edu/
damp )
Chapter 3 Appendixes
3.C: FOMC Meeting Structure
3.D: FOMC Membership
3.E: Thematic Scores for Individual Members of the
FOMC in 1999
viii Contents
Book Appendix I: Alceste Software and Methodology
Explained
Book Appendix II: Details of Congressional Hearings
Book Appendix III: Sources for Congressional Hearings
Book Appendix IV: Does the Choice of Textual Analysis
Software Affect the Results?
Acknowledgments
Various portions of this book (in its many stages) were presented
at annual meetings of the American Political Science Association;
the History of Congress Conference (Yale, 2006); the D é partement
d’ é c onomie et de gestion É c ole normale supé r ieure de Cachan (2008);
the Domestic Preferences and Foreign Economic Policy Conference
(Princeton, 2008); the annual meetings of the Midwest Political Science
Association (2009) and Southern Economic Association (Atlanta 2010);
the Macroeconomics and Econometrics Conference (Birmingham,
2010); the Text as Data Conference (Northwestern, 2011); the Inaugural
General Conference of the ECPR Standing Group on Parliaments
(Dublin, 2012); Politics in Times of Crisis Conference (LSE, 2012);
and the ESRC Research Methods Festival (Oxford, 2012). I am very
grateful to the many discussants as well as the audiences at these con-
ferences for their suggestions. In addition an earlier version of the
Volcker Revolution case study in chapter 3 was published in Political
Analysis.
For assistance on the interviews for chapter 5, I am grateful to
Allan Meltzer, Adam Posen, Phil Bradley, Ken Shepsle, Stephen Anso-
labehere, Jim Snyder, Patrick Dunleavy, and Mark Peterson. Brookings
Institution provided office space and further assistance. The interview-
ees (both named and anonymous, as noted in chapter 5) were very
generous with their time and remarkably frank with their assessments
of the deliberations in which they took part. Their fascinating analyses
and anecdotes could have comprised a book of its own.
Others gave me insightful advice at various points in this project,
including Sarah Binder, Henry (Chip) Chappell, Jeff Frieden, William
(Bill) Bernhard, William (Bill) Roberts Clark, and Lawrence Broz. MIT
Press Senior Editor John Covell handled the manuscript with his usual
efficiency and care; I couldn ’ t have asked for a better editor.