BRADLEY POLICY RESEARCH CENTER


Shadow Open Market Committee

 

The latest meeting of the SOMC was held May 7-8, 2006 in Washington, D.C.

For additional information, please contact Sue North.

Monetary Policy Indicators

 

 

Committee Members

Charles Plosser, Co-Chair

University of Rochester

Anna Schwartz, Co-Chair NBER

Gregory Hess

Claremont McKenna College

W. Lee Hoskins

Pacific Research Institute

Mickey Levy

Bank of America

Bennett McCallum

Carnegie-Mellon University

Alan Stockman

University of Rochester

     The Shadow Open Market Committee (SOMC) was founded by Prof. Karl Brunner of the University of Rochester and Prof. Allan Meltzer of Carnegie-Mellon University.  It held its first semi-annual meeting on September 14, 1973.  The original objective was to evaluate the policy choices and actions of the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC).  Since 1973 the SOMC has met on a regular basis to discuss economic policy.  Over the years the Committee has broadened its scope to cover a wide range of macroeconomic policy issues ranging from monetary and fiscal policy to issues pertaining to international trade and tax policy.  The Committee's deliberations are intended to improve policy discussions among policy makers, journalists and the general public with the hope that wiser policy decisions will result.

The Committee meets semi-annually.  At each meeting a number of papers are prepared by Committee members on a variety of macroeconomic and public policy topics.  Based on these papers and the Committee's deliberations, a Policy Statement is prepared that summarizes the most important policy recommendations of the Committee.

The SOMC is an independent organization whose members are drawn from academic institutions and private organizations.  The views and opinions expressed by the Committee are its own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations with which the members are affiliated or the sponsoring organizations.

For a brief history of the founding of the SOMC see Allan H. Meltzer's, The Shadow Open Market Committee: Origins and Operations.

If you would like to find out more about future meetings please contact Sue North at the Simon School.

All documents are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.  If you need to download the Acrobat Reader go to the Adobe homepage.

Click here for complete address, phone, email and fax information on the Committee members.

A limited collection of prior year reports are available.  Currently reports are available for 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999 and 1998.

 

 

Latest SOMC Reports

    Meeting Date: May 7-8, 2006, Washington, D.C.
       Press Release
  Policy Statement
  Inflation is Like a Cancer, Not Like a Cold - Gregory Hess 
  Monetary Policy and Maintaining Low Inflation - Mickey Levy
  Policy-Rule Rerospective on the Greenspan Era - Bennett McCallum
 

Chairman Bernanke Should Review the Roster of the Fed's Non-Monetary Policy Activities:  Are They a Distraction or Useful for the Conduct of Monetary Policy?- Anna Schwartz