Federal Reserve Bank Presidents as Public Intellectuals

Abstract

In this essay, we focus on three district Federal Reserve Bank presidents who took on the role of public intellectual in the 1970s and early 1980s. They reflected their districts’ economic concerns, presenting them and their own views at the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) while expressing both in public pronouncements in speeches and in print. Despite possible dissonance, the presidents were able to integrate information emerging from their district constituents with the overall state of the national economy in their input to the FOMC, while explaining the economic situation—in the framework of their economic worldviews—to the public at large, that is to say, both communicating their views externally and disturbing the internal status quo of economic thinking at the Federal Reserve.