Tim Duy, Columnist

Whom to Listen to in the Fed Minutes

The members, who have a vote, matter more than the participants, who don't.

February 23, 2017 at 6:39 PM UTC

Tim Duy is a professor of practice and senior director of the Oregon Economic Forum at the University of Oregon and the author of Tim Duy's Fed Watch.

Leading the discussion.
Photographer: Aaron P. Bernstein/Bloomberg

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When it comes to the meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee, not all central bank policy makers are created equally. There are “participants” -- all the policy makers in the room -- and there are “members,” those who have a vote. It is important to keep this distinction in mind when reading the minutes of the FOMC meetings -- especially because many of the more hawkish members of the Fed are participants, not members.

Expectations of a rate hike in March hardly budged after the release of the most recent Fed minutes. This was a key line: