Data for ""Majority Rule, Consensus Building, and the Power of the Chairman: Arthur Burns and the FOMC," by Henry Chappell, Rob Roy McGregor and Todd Vermilyea.

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Data is Arranged in Three Segments:

1. Estimation of Individual Reaction Functions
2. Estimation of Committee Decision-Making Models
3. Time-Series Properties of the Data
4. Appendix Available from the Authors

1. Estimation of Individual Reaction Functions

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The 2 tsp program files below estimate an individual reaction function for Morris (an example, there are corresponding files for each individual -- available below):

morr.tsp

morr2.tsp

The files differ only in storing the results. "morr.tsp" stores desired interest rates for Morris when Morris was a voting member of the FOMC. "morr2.tsp" stores desired interest rates for Morris when Morris was a non-voting member of the FOMC. Estimates of the individual reaction functions are identical.

Similar programs for each of the other individuals are contained in this zip file:

IndividualReactionFunctions.zip

These files read in two data files in excel format:

The programs that estimate individual reaction functions are also used to impute desired federal funds rates for FOMC members. The series of desired federal funds rates (combining explicitly stated and imputed measures) are summarized in two spreadsheets (one for voting members, one for non-voting members):

rdatvotr.xls

rdatalt.xls

Committee means and medians (and other variables) are constructed using these data. Datasets including these variables are described in the next section.

2. Estimation of Committee Decision-Making Models

All of the variables and programs described in this section are included in the following zip file:

CommitteeDecisionModels.Zip (To download, right mouse click, then choose "save target as")

Each column in Tables 3 and 4 in the paper represents the output of a single TSP program. The programs are named according to the following convention:

btij.tsp gives the estimation that produces the result in Table i, column j. 

For example, bt46.tsp gives results for Table 4, column 6.

Each program presents OLS results; results of bootstrapping to produce correct p-values as described in Section V. of the Appendix are also provided in each program.

Each of these programs reads burnsdat.tlb as the source of data. This file includes the variables:

targetr
mean
median
burns
altmean
altmed
meanbp
meangov

These variables are also available in an excel spreadsheet and in a tab-delimited text file.

3. Time Series Properties of the Data

Section IV of the Appendix to the paper contains results of unit root and cointegration tests. All data and tests, as well as a "readme" file are contained in the zip file below:

TimeSeriesAppendix.zip (To download, right mouse click, then choose "save target as")

4. Appendix Available from the Authors

Our article references an appendix available from the authors. That appendix is provided below:

JMCB_Appendix.pdf