How central bankers spend their time
How leaders allocate their limited time and attention is an important question in economics. This paper constructs and analyzes a novel data set covering the daily calendars of three Federal Reserve Chairs, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, and Jerome Powell, containing more than 20,000 calendar entries. We document several patterns. First, all Fed Chairs spend more […] The post How central bankers…
This NBER working paper by Thomas Drechsel and Dali Tsakadze analyzes the daily calendars of three Federal Reserve Chairs to understand how central bankers allocate their limited time and attention. The dataset contains over 20,000 calendar entries, providing valuable insights into the decision-making process of the Fed.
The researchers found that all three Fed Chairs spent more than 30% of their documented meetings with Fed staff, emphasizing the crucial role of economists in the Fed's decision-making process. Additionally, interactions with the media became more frequent during Ben Bernanke's tenure and remained important until the end of Jerome Powell's tenure.
One notable difference was the number of meetings Fed Chairs had with lawmakers. Jerome Powell held significantly more meetings with lawmakers than both Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke, indicating an increasing need for the Fed to engage with political actors.
The paper also examines the time allocation of Fed Chairs at business cycle frequencies, showing how different activities respond to shifts in the macroeconomic environment. Lastly, the findings are placed in historical context by comparing the calendars of earlier Fed Chairs, including Alan Greenspan.
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