"The Fed Laughter Index"

From the Conversable Economist:

From time to time, I've posted figures to help illustrate the sharpness and severity of the financial and economic shocks that hit the U.S. economy starting in 2007 and lasting into 2009. Some examples (here and here) included interest rate spreads, net lending by the financial sector, the housing price bubble, inflows of international capital, and the like. But here's an offbeat measure: in the transcripts of the meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee, which is at the center of making decisions about monetary policy, how many times does the transcript note that laughter occurred?

During the tail end of the Greenspan years, 10-30 laughs per meeting was about the norm. (Just to be clear, this humor is typically the sort of thing that would only provide chuckles to aficionados of monetary policy who are shut in a room together.)...MORE