What Insights Do Taxi Rides Offer into Federal Reserve Leakage?

Abstract

In this paper, I employ anonymous New York City yellow taxi records to infer variation in interactions between insiders of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (New York Fed) and insiders of major commercial banks around Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings. Taxi rides between the vicinities of the New York Fed's and the major commercial banks' buildings serve as indicators of meetings at those institutions, and coincidental drop-offs of passengers picked up around those institutions serve as indicators of offsite meetings. Cieślak, Morse and Vissing-Jorgensen (2016) posit systematic leakage from the Federal Reserve around FOMC meetings along unofficial channels, and, in line with that hypothesis, I find highly statistically significant evidence of increases in meetings at the New York Fed late at night and in offsite meetings during typical lunch hours.