alternative views about current developments affecting the economy and about its long - run growth properties, and they argued their points in the meeting. nonetheless, all but one of the voting members was able to agree that the action taken that day was consistent with moving the economy toward meeting the committee's objectives. 4. do you need to be a monetary policy expert to contribute? the committee is strengthened by having people with a wide variety of backgrounds, including those whose principal area of expertise of lies outside of monetary economics. to some extent, the range of backgrounds on the fomc reflects the need for expertise to carry out the non - monetary policy responsibilities of the federal reserve. any monetary policy committee needs to have a number of people on it that fully understand and can deal readily with the model behind policy deliberations, and who have an awareness of the lessons of monetary policy history. but other types of expertise also are valuable. policy works through financial markets, and those with that background contribute to understanding how policy impulses are being transmitted to savers and spenders. experience in private industry is valuable for gathering and interpreting information from many business sources that we bring to fomc deliberations. any member needs to understand the basic framework to have influence on the debate. but you don't need to be a monetary policy expert. those who come on the committee with policy credentials can be very effective immediately. but judgment and experience count. noneconomists can become very effective as they learn the lingo and the framework. the large size of the committee and long tenure of members allows time and space for this expertise to develop. one of the most difficult aspects of policymaking is recognizing what you don't know, perhaps because the world is no longer conforming to your models. a high level of monetary policy expertise is not necessarily a good guide to who will possess that skill. conclusion the proof of the pudding is in the eating. since the late 1970s in the united states and since the establishment of the mpc in the united kingdom, economic performance in both countries has, on balance, been good. a number of factors have contributed to this result, but the respective monetary policy committees must have played some role. to be sure, in the united states, the leadership of chairmen volcker, greenspan, and bernanke has been critical to the results, but i believe a diverse and independent minded group of policymakers has contributed as well, and it is important to maintain this mix

donald l kohn : expertise and macroeconomic policy comments by mr donald l kohn, vice chairman of the board of governors of the us federal reserve system, on " insiders versus outsiders in monetary policy - making, " by timothy besley, neil meads, and paolo surico, at the american economic association session, allied social science associations annual meeting, new orleans, louisiana, 4 january 2008. * * * this panel is dealing with an important topic – in effect, the design and functioning of monetary policy committees. monetary policy decisions are judgment calls, informed by forecasts and discussions about how the economy is likely to evolve, alternative possibilities, and potential responses to policy actions. the question is how to bring the best possible judgments to bear on these questions. besley, meads and surico's contribution is to ask whether certain characteristics of the policymakers matter for the how they vote on the monetary policy committee. for the monetary policy committee ( mpc ) at the bank of england, they find heterogeneous views among voters, but no systematic differences based on whether the mpc member is an insider – that is part of the hierarchy at the bank – or an outsider appointed for a short term just to the mpc ; whether the person comes from an academic background ; or whether that person has worked at the treasury. i found the piece well done and interesting, and i have only a few comments before moving on to some questions and observations about the federal open market committee ( fomc ) sparked by reading this research. 1 my first comment is that i'm not surprised by the results. the mpc has a well - defined objective given by the government. to be sure, members may differ about the precise time frame in which to meet that objective, but these distinctions should be small relative to the importance of the overall objective. in addition, at every policy meeting, each member of the mpc is operating with the same information from the staff, and before the quarterly meetings that precede an inflation report, the members have sat through a number of discussions covering all aspects of the forecast. everyone should be equally familiar with the key issues and analysis. finally, dissent is accepted, indeed encouraged in some respects, by insiders as well as outsiders, reducing any differences in incentives facing the two groups. nonetheless, some aspects of the paper raised questions in my mind about the robustness of the results. for one, the authors, in testing for differences in policy