We show that growth and unemployment forecasts submitted by individual FOMC members do not exhibit herding behavior, while the inflation forecasts show strong evidence of anti-herding. Interestingly, anti-herding is more important for non-voting members than for voters.

Central banks face uncertainty about potential output. We model optimal monetary policy under discretion in a situation in which the central bank adopts a min–max approach to policy. The case for appointing a conservative central banker who puts a larger weight on inflation stabilization...