How Committees of Experts Interact with the Outside World: Some Theory, and Evidence from the FOMC
- 1 April 2008
- journal article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Journal of the European Economic Association
- Vol. 6 (2-3), 478-486
- https://doi.org/10.1162/jeea.2008.6.2-3.478
Abstract
Some committees are made up of experts, persons who care both about the matter at hand and about coming across as able decision- makers. We derive two propositions about the way members of such committees interact with the outside world. First, they would like to conceal disagreement from the public. That is, once the decision has been reached, they show a united front to the outside world. Second, if such committees are required to become transparent, e.g., by publishing verbatim transcripts of their meetings, members will organize pre-meetings away from the public eye. Large part of the paper is dedicated to a case study of the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee in the United States. It provides suggestive evidence supporting the two propositions. Keywords: Committees, pre-meetings, reputational concerns, trans- parency, FOMC. JEL codes: D71, D72, D82Keywords
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