George Mason University professor Robin Hanson in my view is one of the most thought-provoking and innovative thinkers in the world. I often read Hanson’s blog Overcoming Bias and I always find my own views challenged and even though Hanson’s views often seem outrageous they surely make you think and personally I often conclude that Hanson is right.

One of Robin Hanson’s most provocative ideas is his suggestion to replace democracy with what he calls Futarchy. Hanson first presented this idea in his paper “Shall We Vote on Values, But Bet on Outcome?” originally from 2000 (and revised in 2007). Hanson’s view is that democracies often fail to aggregate information and different forms of bias – well known from the Public Choice literature – plague democracy, while the market mechanism is a much better aggregator of information that should be utilised in the decision making process.

Hanson thinks that democratically elected officials should vote on what objectives (“Values”) to pursue, but not on how to achieve these objectives.  Hanson instead suggest using Decision Markets to make decisions instead of voting on different proposals.

Most people will find Hanson’s suggestion outrageous and I am not advocating Futarchy as a general form of government, but I do think that Hanson’s idea have lot of merit in regard to the conduct of central banking (assuming that we want to have central banks in the first place…)

Today most “modern” central banks have some more or less clearly stated objective (“values” in Hanson’s terminology). For example the Swedish Riksbank, the New Zealand Reserve Bank or the Polish central bank all have relatively clearly defined inflation targets, while the ECB as objective has to ensure “price stability” (in praxis defined as an inflation target of 2%) and the Federal Reserve has the (in)famous “dual mandate” (price stability and a high level of employment). Market Monetarists of course are advocating NGDP level targeting.

Central banks around the world are relatively clear on what they want to achieve – at least on paper. However, when it comes to the question of how to achieve these objectives it is often a lot less clear. A reason for that is that economists often disagree on what model best describes the economy. Furthermore, often disagreement in what really should be the objective of the central bank blurs policy discussions. I have previously argued that central banks should utilise prediction markets to do macroeconomic forecasting, but why not take this one step further and listen to Robin Hanson and introduce Futarchy as the basis for decision-making in monetary policy? (Please note here that I am “just” thinking out loud here. I have no clue whether this is a good idea, but if we don’t play around with ideas we will never make progress…)

Today the decision-making process in most central banks follows a pretty well-defined “industry standard”, where policy decisions often are made on a monthly basis by what is often termed something like monetary policy committee (MPC). In the US this of course is the FOMC. Policy decisions are then made by a “democratic” method where the MPC members vote on different policy proposals – for example to cut or hike interest rates or to engage in asset buying and open market operations etc. The central bank’s research department will often play a key role in the decision making process as the research department will present scenario analysis based on different proposals. There are of course variations from country to country but I think this is pretty close to the “real-life” praxis in for example the Bank of England, the ECB and the Federal Reserve. The Bank of Israel is an interesting exemption. Here BoI governor Stanley Fischer is “monetary dictator” as he alone – at least on paper – makes decisions on monetary policy.

A monetary policy making process based on Futarchy would change that decision-making process in a significantly more transparent direction. Here is a simple illustrative “proposal” (I stress again that I am thinking out loud).

I imagine a four-step procedure. First, the MPC would vote on what objective to pursue – for example a NGDP level target and a target for the growth path of NGDP. Most likely that objective would be reaffirmed very month.

Second, each member of the MPC would be allowed to suggest a proposal for how to achieve the agreed policy objective. To make things simple the MPC would be asked to decide on from all the suggestions on three different suggestions based on the gross list of proposals. It would be conditioned that these proposals where clearly defined in terms of timing and execution – for example the central bank will buy X dollars (or whatever currency) of foreign currency every month in the coming 6 months or the central bank will increase the overnight rate by 25bp every quarter in the coming year. Compared to today’s policy-making process this would be much more transparent and clear to market participants.

Third, the central bank would set-up “policy markets” for each of the three policy proposals. These markets then will give an implicit estimate on the probability that each of the proposals will be successful in achieving the stated policy goal.  I imagine the markets are opened the day after the MPC decision and then be open initially for a week.

Forth, the one of the three policy proposals the market judges to have the highest probability of succeeding in achieving the policy objective is put into action. The two other policy markets would be closed down again and the investors in these markets would get their money back. This will happen one week after the three markets have been opened. Obviously the price of the chosen proposal would jump once it becomes clear that it will be put into action. This market will then automatically give a market based forecast on the likely outcome in terms of the overall policy objective of the chosen policy instrument.

Lets relate this to the present US monetary policy and lets assume the Fed has decided that it would target a return of NGDP to the pre-crisis trend by the end of 2014. The FOMC agrees on three alternative policy proposals to achieve this policy objective. 1) Ben’s solution: The Fed will keep interest rates at basically zero until late 2014. 2) Scott’s solution: The Fed will issue NGDP futures and target a level for the futures, which is compatible with the overall policy objective.  3) Irving’s solution: A modified version of the compensated dollar plan – the Fed will buy unlimited amounts of commodities until NGDP reaches the target level.

I wonder how the markets would price these three proposals, but it doesn’t really matter because if you believe in the wisdom of the crowds then you will trust the markets will choose the policy that best ensures the overall objective. Furthermore, a complete commitment to the overall set-up would probably ensure that the markets would do a lot of the lifting on its own.

But yes, let me just say that I am still just thinking out loud, but I am looking forward to hear what my readers think of this “minor” institutional reform idea.

PS George Selgin would of course say that we should just get rid of central banks all together and Scott Sumner would say why not just implement NGDP futures? I would not argue with George and Scott, but for now we just want people to start thinking serious about monetary policy. And there is of course no conflict between a Hansonian monetary system and Scott’s ideas (which on it own could be seen as a privatisation strategy)

PPS In Hanson’s Futarchy paper he in fact briefly discusses monetary policy and decision markets.