2010-16 Is there a limit on FOMC dissents?

Dissents in the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) are relatively rare. Is this because policymakers late in the voting order are deterred from dissenting? Dis-sents became infrequent during Chairman Greenspan’s tenure, arguably reflecting his growing influence. We show that policymaker dissents also were driven by the al-phabetical voting order in the FOMC, the number of dissents already cast, whether the policymaker in question is a Board member, and inflation. Because dissents help forecast future changes in the Federal funds rate, this implicit constraint on dissents may be inefficient in that it prevents the communication of useful information to financial markets.