Congressional Attention to Monetary Policy over Time

The Federal Reserve describes itself as "an independent government agency but also one that is ultimately accountable to the public and the Congress...Congress also structured the Federal Reserve to ensure that its monetary policy decisions focus on achieving these long-run goals and do not become subject to political pressures that could lead to undesirable outcomes."

The independence of the Fed is by no means fixed or guaranteed. Rather, the Fed continually attempts to defend its independence. As Dincer and Eichengreen (2014) note, the movement of central banks toward greater transparency can be understood in part as an effort to protect independence by demonstrating accountability outside of the electoral process. They explain that "calls to audit the Federal Reserve have intensified as the central bank has come to rely more extensively on unconventional policies and expanded the range of its interventions in securities markets. The FOMC’s decision to make more information publicly available can thus be understood as an effort to reconcile the increased complexity of its operations with the desire to maintain and defend its independence."

The Fed derives its authority from Congress, and Congress can alter the Fed's responsibilities (and decrease its independence) by statute. Since the financial crisis, congressional calls for more oversight of the Fed or for less discretion by monetary policymakers abound. In National Affairs, Steve Stein writes:

"The independence of the Federal Reserve may well be more threatened in the coming years than at any time in the 100-year history of America's central bank. That independence could prove impossible to protect as long as the Fed continues to exchange its role as a defender of monetary stability for a new role as the ultimate overseer of the financial system. That new role is an inherently political one, and the Fed cannot expect to be permitted to perform it without interference from the democratically elected institutions of our political system."

It is difficult to measure the level of "threat" to Federal Reserve independence, but some indicators of Congressional attention to monetary policy are available. The Comparative Agendas Project tracks data on policy agendas, including hearings and bills, across several countries. Congress may use monetary policy-related hearings or bills as a form of signal to the Fed--an indirect form of political pressure or warning.

The figure below shows the number of bills in the U.S. Congress related to interest rates or monetary policy over time. Unsurprisingly, the 1970s and early 80s saw the largest number of such bills. The 1973-74 Congress considered 101 bills about interest rates and 55 about monetary policy. But the 2009-10 and 2011-12 Congress considered just 15 and 22 bills about monetary policy, respectively, which is low by historical standards.

Created at http://www.comparativeagendas.net/

The next graph, below, shows the number of Congressional hearings on interest rates and monetary policy. These also peaked around the late 1970s. Since then, however, while hearings on interest rates have dwindled, hearings on monetary policy remain frequent--typically 10-20 per year. There is a mild upward trend from 2005 to 2012. Still, by neither metric of bills nor hearings is the Fed facing an unprecedented era of Congressional meddling.

Created at http://www.comparativeagendas.net/

Another Four Percent

When Jeb Bush announced his presidential candidacy on Monday, he made a bold claim. "There's not a reason in the world we can’t grow at 4 percent a year,” he said, “and that will be my goal as president.”

You can pretty much guarantee that whenever a politician claims "there's not a reason in the world," plenty of people will be happy to provide one, and this case is no exception. Those reasons aside, for now, where did this 4 percent target come from? Jordan Weissmann explains that "the figure apparently originated during a conference call several years ago, during which Bush and several other advisers were brainstorming potential economic programs for the George W. Bush Institute...Jeb casually tossed out the idea of 4 percent growth, which everybody loved, even though it was kind of arbitrary." Jeb Bush himself calls 4 percent "a nice round number. It's double the growth that we are growing at." (To which Jon Perr snippily adds, "It's also an even number and the square of two.")

Let's face it, we have a thing for nice, round, kind of arbitrary numbers. The 2 percent inflation target, for example, was not chosen as the precise solution to some optimization problem, but more as a "rough guess [that] acquired force as a focal point." Psychology research shows that people put in extra effort to reach round number goals,  like a batting average of .300 rather than .299. A 4 percent growth target reduces something multidimensional and hard to define--economic success--to a single, salient number. An explicit numerical target provides an easy guide for accountability. This can be very useful, but it can also backfire.

As an analogy, imagine that citizens of some country have a vague, noble goal for their education system, like "improving student learning." They want to encourage school administrators and teachers to pursue this goal and hold them accountable. But with so many dimensions of student learning, it is difficult to gauge effort or success. They could introduce a mandatory, standardized math test for all students, and rate a teacher as "highly successful" if his or her students' scores improve by at least 10% over the course of the year. A nice round number. This would provide a simple, salient way to judge success, and it would certainly change what goes on in the classroom, with obvious upsides and downsides. Many teachers would put in more effort to ensure that students learned math--at least, the math covered on the test--but might neglect literature, art, or gym. Administrators might have incentive to engage in some deceptive accounting practices, finding reasons why a particular student's score should not be counted, why a group of students should switch classrooms. Even outright cheating, though likely rare, is possible, especially if jobs are hinging on the difference between 9.9% improvement and 10%. What is changing one or two answers?

Ceteris paribus, more math skills would bring a variety of benefits, just like more growth would, as the George W. Bush Institute's 4% Growth Project likes to point out. But making 4 percent growth the standard for success could also change policymakers' incentives and behaviors in some perverse ways. Potential policies' ability to boost growth will be overemphasized, and other merits or flaws (e.g. for the environment or the income distribution) underemphasized. The purported goal is sustained 4 percent growth over long time periods, which implies making the kind of long-run-minded reforms that boost both actual and potential GDP--not just running the economy above capacity for as long as possible until the music stops. But realistically, a president would worry more about achieving 4 percent while in office and less about afterwards, encouraging short-termism at best, or more unsavory practices at worst.

Even with all of these caveats, if the idea of a 4 percent solution still sounds appealing, it is worth opening up the discussion to what other 4 percent solutions might be better. Laurence Ball, Brad Delong, and Paul Krugman have made the case for 4 percent inflation target. I see their points but am not fully convinced. But what about 4 percent unemployment? Or 4 percent nominal wage growth? Are they more or less attainable than 4 percent GDP growth, and how would the benefits compare? If we do decide to buy into a 4 percent target, it is worth at least pausing to think about which 4 percent.