That difference has almost certainly affected Fed policy, causing it to be less aggressive on policy and more optimistic about economic growth than it otherwise would be. As Mr. Thoma, an economics professor at the University of Oregon, recently wrote, Fed officials are “in a more precarious political position than they ever expected to be in.” With the benefit of hindsight, we also know that the Fed has been too optimistic during the past two years, forecasting stronger growth than ultimately occurred.

Why does the Fed skew more hawkish than the economics profession as a whole? Part of the answer lies in the way the 12 voting members of the policy-setting committee are chosen. They are a mix of presidential nominees subject to Senate approval, with 14-year terms, and regional Fed presidents, who are chosen by outside boards that are made up partly of private-sector finance executives.

David Levey, a former managing director at Moody’s and another critic of Fed inaction, points out that banks often have more to lose from inflation than from unemployment. Inflation reduces the future value of the money that their debtors — homeowners, car buyers, small businesses and the like — will repay them.

“The Fed regional banks represent, in essence, the banking community, which tends to be very conservative and hawkish,” Mr. Levey says. “Creditors don’t like inflation — it’s good for debtors.” Indeed, the three recent dissents all came from regional bank presidents: Richard W. Fisher of Dallas, Narayana R. Kocherlakota of Minneapolis and Charles I. Plosser of Philadelphia.

Mr. Obama, for his part, has chosen to nominate mostly moderates, rather than strong inflation doves. Most significantly, he re-nominated Mr. Bernanke, originally a George W. Bush adviser and appointee, to a second four-year term as chairman, based largely on Mr. Bernanke’s aggressive steps in 2008 and 2009 to prevent another depression. The Obama administration has also been slow to fill some Fed openings. At least one of the 12 seats has been vacant since Mr. Obama took office, and two are now.

The doves outside the Fed do not all favor the same steps — or even the label dove. Indeed, they have some significant disagreements.

Some want a more aggressive round of quantitative easing, a policy the Fed enacted in 2009 and 2010 to try to bring down long-term interest rates. Some want significantly faster near-term inflation, to make up for the low inflation of the past few years and give people an incentive to spend more money now. Some want the Fed to commit to buying up financial assets — the functional equivalent of printing money — until the nation’s gross domestic product has recovered from the crisis. In Sweden, the central bank has engaged in more aggressive asset buying, which appears to be one reason the economy there has recovered from the crisis much better than in most other rich countries, notes Mr. Sumner, a conservative-leaning monetary-policy economist at Bentley University.