I occasionally see comments from people who have an unrealistic set of expectations for Fed officials.

An institution like the Fed will tend to reflect the consensus view of economists. Back in late 2008, I was among perhaps a few dozen people in the entire world who blamed the Great Recession on a tight money policy of the Fed. Even today, that view is only slightly more popular, mostly due to the effort of market monetarist bloggers. It’s entirely unrealistic to expect Fed officials to reflect the views of market monetarists—that’s now how our system works. Nor will they reflect the views of other obscure groups, like MMTers or fans of the fiscal theory of the price level. That’s why I favor NGDP level targeting, it’s a regime that will lead to pretty good results under almost any competent leadership.

I’m not saying the people appointed to the Fed don’t matter at all. Bernanke did better than Volcker or Greenspan would have done (based on their public comments during the Great Recession), and better than the average economist would have done. Mario Draghi did better than Trichet. But for the most part, Fed policy merely reflects the consensus view of economists and financial market pundits. Don’t expect anything more than that.

David Beckworth recently interviewed Neil Irwin, who pointed out that Bernanke was under a lot of pressure to adopt a more contractionary policy.  He also noted that while Trump has criticized the Fed for raising rates, he has also appointed Marvin Goodfriend to the Fed, a relatively hawkish economist.  Obama also appointed several people who were more hawkish than Bernanke.  If Trump wants dovish policies then he might trying appointing doves.