Today, Barney Frank introduced legislation in committee to remove regional Fed presidents from the FOMC:

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass) Tuesday introduced a bill that would let interest rates be set only by Federal Reserve officials picked by the government, a new attempt to move power away from regional Fed officials chosen by the private sector.

The bill would remove from the 12-member policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee the five members who represent regional Fed banks. Only the seven-member board in Washington, which currently has two vacant seats, would get to vote on interest rates. The congressman said this would make the Fed more democratic and increase “transparency and accountability on the FOMC” by eliminating those officials who are effectively picked by business executives

Now, I have never been a fan of Barney Frank, but I do see merits in this legislation. However, first a contrary opinion, courtesy of Mark Thoma:

I can support – and have advocated — reforming the way in which regional bank presidents are selected. But this proposal, which removes geographical representation even though recessions do not hit each area of the country equally, is a bad idea (the Board of Governors can already veto the appointment of a regional bank president, though I don’t know of any instances where this power has been used). It takes us further away from the populist roots of the Fed’s structure, a structure that tried hard to represent all interests in policy. It also furthers the concentration of power in Washington that has been occurring slowly but surely ever since the Bank Reform Acts in the wake of the recession established the Fed’s current structure. In addition, it takes another step toward increasing the power of Congress over day to day monetary policy…I hate to even imagine how bad things would be if Congress had been in charge of monetary policy.

…reform the selection process for regional bank presidents, but don’t increase the concentration of power in Washington…I would like to see, at a minimum, less representation of business so that the public interest generally can take center stage.

While I can stand broadly stand behind the anti-concentration of power sentiment, if you have regions of a country which fluctuate so wildly from baseline that their performance creates a necessity for special accommodation from monetary policy in general, that is an OCA argument against having a single currency area. David Beckworth has argued that the “rust belt” in the US could have possibly benefited from its own currency over the last decade, and I agree!

Do we need regional Fed presidents at the table? After all, in the Great Contraction of 2008, and the ensuing recession, it has been the regional presidents that have provided the voice of hawkishness, even through tumultuous 2009! So when the chips are down, and adequate monetary policymaking is at its highest stakes, these guys were wrong…and being that they largely represent banking interests, they are likely biased against inflation at all costs. This certainly hasn’t been any help to our recovery!

Thoma is worried about Congressional power eroding sound monetary policy decision-making…but our current Fed structure doesn’t prevent that, indeed, it probably enhances it!* After all, Bernanke held the first press conference amid rising populist fears stoking an encroaching Congress’ ire regarding monetary policy. When Mark hopes that public interest would take center stage — and I do as well — but I don’t see how reforming the Fed presidents’ selection process is superior to having a board that is wholly selected by the President, and approved by Congress. If you want to do 12 members that way, so be it!

However, while Barney Frank’s motivation is mostly suspect, sometimes even then you stumble upon a good idea…but this idea isn’t good enough. If you are in a position where your legislation has little chance of making it out of committee, my play would be to lay all of my cards on the table: rewrite the Fed charter such that it requires the Fed to set one nominal target, and keep it on a level growth path. I would prefer NGDP, as I believe that targeting nominal spending is far superior to targeting inflation. This is obviously not Frank’s goal, and it would likely go against Franks (poor) instincts as it removes the unemployment portion of the mandate…but the level of employment in an economy is a real variable.

So what if trend NGDP was perfectly on target, but unemployment remained uncomfortably high. Is that a reason for monetary policy to act? Well, it could be…but there are other questions to ask of other policymakers. What are the structural problems? If there are supply side rigidities, look at removing them (not just removing specific laws, but increasing education, etc.). If you are uncomfortable with removing them, then live with higher joblessness. If there happened to have been an extremely productivity-enhancing technological development (like mass teleportation?) that is causing persistent unemployment because it significantly increases the return on capital investment vs labor investment, then perhaps the long-run growth potential of the economy has been increased — if that is the case, monetary policy may need to target a higher growth path for NGDP.

So, to sum it up, I think removing regional Presidents does make the board more accountable, and it would probably also improve the decision-making process. And if you really wanted to reform the Fed with an eye toward independence, remove the dual mandate and institute a explicit nominal target.

*Imagine a Congressional hearing under an NGDP targeting rule. What would it consist of?

Congressman: “Is NGDP on target”?
Fed Chair: “Yeop”.
Congressman: “Lets get lunch”.

That is obviously a joke, but it is the wiggle room created by the confusing dual mandate that allows Congress to leverage nearly all of its power against the bank.

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