{
  "id": 16434707,
  "title": "How central bankers spend their time",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/25/how-central-bankers-spend-their-time",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-10-25T05:14:29.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Marginal Revolution",
    "slug": "marginal-revolution",
    "url": "https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/10/how-central-bankers-spend-their-time.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "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.\n\nThe 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.\n\nOne 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.\n\nThe 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.",
  "summary": "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…",
  "key_points": [
    "Over 30% of meetings with Fed staff, highlighting economists' crucial role",
    "Media interactions frequent during Ben Bernanke's and Jerome Powell's tenures",
    "Jerome Powell had more lawmaker meetings than Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke"
  ],
  "editors_take": "The increasing frequency of meetings with political actors suggests that the Federal Reserve must navigate a growing need for direct engagement with lawmakers to manage its institutional responsibilities.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}