MacroScope

Size matters, and Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is not as big as shrill critics of QE3 would lead you to believe.

True, $3 trillion is serious money. It represents a tripling in the size of the Fed’s balance sheet since 2008, before the U.S. central bank unleashed the first round of its aggressive campaign of so-called quantitative easing. It is now on round three, and has committed to keep buying bonds until it spies a substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market.

But as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic product), the Fed’s balance sheet is still smaller  than those of the Bank of Japan, European Central Bank, and Bank of England, notching under 20 percent of GDP compared with over 30 percent of GDP for both the BOJ and ECB.

Jim Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve, made this point during a presentation at Mississippi State University on Wednesday. The graph on page 32 of his slideshow tells the tale.

Bullard was more cagey on whether it mattered that the Fed’s balance sheet was smaller than several other major central banks. He said the size of the balance sheet could still hinder a “graceful exit” from the Fed’ extraordinary efforts to spur growth, while the value of the assets on its books would fall as interest rates rise. However, if investors decide to really start worrying about central bank balance

Think three dissents at the consensus-loving Federal Reserve are a lot? Try 435. According to St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, that’s how many dissents have been logged since 1936 by U.S. central bank policymakers unhappy with the decisions of the majority of their colleagues.

Internal disagreement at the Fed is unquestionably high, so much so that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday said policymakers would meet for two days in September, not just one, to discuss their options more fully. Three regional Fed presidents — Dallas Fed’s Richard Fisher, Philadelphia Fed’s Charles Plosser, and Minneapolis Fed’s Narayana Kocherlakota — cast their vote against the Fed’s decision earlier this month to freeze short-term interest rates for two years.

“It depends a lot on the personalities involved, it depends a lot on the situation,” Bullard said of why some decisions draw more dissents than others. Bullard, who does not have a vote this year on the Fed’s policy-setting committee, said he also would have dissented, as did Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig, the host of the annual Jackson Hole meeting of central bankers.