Perhaps the 1970s FOMC did what it said it did

Abstract

Briefing forecasts prepared for the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) are used to estimate changes in the design of US monetary policy and in the implied policy target for inflation from 1970 through 1997. Both estimated policy rate responses and FOMC transcripts are consistent with intermediate targeting of monetary aggregates throughout the Great Inflation of the 1970s. The unpublished FOMC targets for M1 growth are tabulated. Empirical results support an effective inflation target of roughly 7% in the 1970s and 3% thereafter. A notable difference in the 1970s monetary policies of the US and Germany is the absence of explicit public objectives for US long-run inflation