Dissent and Disagreement on the Fed's FOMC: Understanding Regional Affiliations and limits to Transparency

This paper addresses two important, but distinct, issues in monetary policy. The first issue concerns regional influences on voting within a monetary policy committee. In a committee that includes representatives from different regions or countries, is there a regional element to the monetary policy decision or to the votes cast by monetary policymakers? The second issue concerns possible limits to transparency. In an independent central bank that strives to be accountable and to communicate its policy effectively, are there circumstances under which increasing transparency could be harmful? The answer to both of these questions with respect to the Federal Reserve is "maybe".