scholarly journals Monetary Policy Transparency

Author(s):  
Petra Geraats

This chapter examines transparency as a key feature of monetary policymaking by central banks around the world. It begins by presenting a conceptual framework for transparency and reviewing empirical measures, practices, and trends in monetary policy transparency. It then looks at theory regarding macroeconomic transparency as well as relevant empirical evidence. It also considers two ways in which monetary policy has become more transparent: the publication of macroeconomic forecasts and analysis and the disclosure of forward guidance about policy actions. The chapter illustrates how transparency allows the private sector to align its expectations with those of the central bank, making monetary policy more effective in the process.

Author(s):  
María del Carmen González Velasco ◽  
Roque Brinckmann

En este artículo se efectúa un análisis de la integración y dependencia de las políticas monetarias de la Unión Europea y, en concreto, de las políticas monetarias de la Unión Económica yMonetaria y de la zona no euro para el periodo comprendido entre Enero de 1999 y Septiembre 2009. Se aplica la metodología de la cointegración de Engle y Granger (1987) y de Johansen(1988) para contrastar la hipótesis de la paridad de tipos de interés no cubierta y se llega a la conclusión de que ambas políticas están cointegradas porque mantienen una relación de equilibrio a largo plazo. También se deduce una dependencia de la política del Banco de Inglaterra de la política del Banco Central Europeo, lo que confirma la importancia y el liderazgo de la Unión Económica y Monetaria.<br /><br />This study is to investigate the long-run relationship and dependence between the UME´s monetary policy and non-euro zone´s monetary policy for the period from January 4, 1999 to September 30, 2009. We use cointegration methodology to test the Uncovered Interest Parity Hypothesis and the results indicate a long-run cointegration and empirical evidence testifies a leader-follower pattern between the two central banks. According to this pattern, the Bank of England does follow the European Central Bank.


Author(s):  
Pierre L. Siklos

Many central banks took on additional responsibilities. Inadequate self-assessments remain unfinished almost a decade after the crisis erupted. Government-central bank relationships need to be conditioned on whether times are normal versus crisis conditions. Transparency confronts ambiguity when central banks must communicate the outlook and the conditionality of their decisions. Forward guidance was taken too far and ended up being futile. Central bankers simply exhausted their ability to influence behavior through mere words or ambiguous statements. This is a self-inflicted wound for institutions that are seen as overburdened. These forces leave central banking more vulnerable than is commonly acknowledged. Squaring the conventional objectives of monetary policy with the unclear aims of financial stability is difficult. Adequate limitations on the authority of central banks have yet to be thoroughly debated. We are nowhere near resolving the inherent tensions between old and new sets of central bank objectives.


Author(s):  
María del Carmen González Velasco ◽  
Roque Brinckmann

En este artículo se efectúa un análisis de la integración y dependencia de las políticas monetarias de la Unión Europea y, en concreto, de las políticas monetarias de la Unión Económica yMonetaria y de la zona no euro para el periodo comprendido entre Enero de 1999 y Septiembre 2009. Se aplica la metodología de la cointegración de Engle y Granger (1987) y de Johansen(1988) para contrastar la hipótesis de la paridad de tipos de interés no cubierta y se llega a la conclusión de que ambas políticas están cointegradas porque mantienen una relación de equilibrio a largo plazo. También se deduce una dependencia de la política del Banco de Inglaterra de la política del Banco Central Europeo, lo que confirma la importancia y el liderazgo de la Unión Económica y Monetaria.<br /><br />This study is to investigate the long-run relationship and dependence between the UME´s monetary policy and non-euro zone´s monetary policy for the period from January 4, 1999 to September 30, 2009. We use cointegration methodology to test the Uncovered Interest Parity Hypothesis and the results indicate a long-run cointegration and empirical evidence testifies a leader-follower pattern between the two central banks. According to this pattern, the Bank of England does follow the European Central Bank.


Author(s):  
Benjamin Braun

Central banks have increasingly used communication to guide market actors’ expectations of future rates of interest, inflation, and growth. However, aware of the pitfalls of (financial) central planning, central bankers until recently drew a line by restricting their monetary policy interventions to short-term interest rates. Longer-term rates, they argued, reflected decentralized knowledge and should be determined by market forces. By embracing forward guidance and quantitative easing (QE) to target long-term rates, central banks have crossed that line. While consistent with the post-1980s expansion of the temporal reach of monetary policy further into the future, these unconventional policies nevertheless mark a structural break—the return of hydraulic macroeconomic state agency, refashioned for a financialized economy. This chapter analyses the theoretical and practical reasoning behind this shift in the governability paradigm and examines the epistemic and reputational costs of modern central bank planning and the non-market setting of long-term bond prices.


Author(s):  
Jakob de Haan ◽  
Jan-Egbert Sturm

Many central banks in the world nowadays regard their external communication as an important tool to achieve their goals. This chapter provides an overview of the different ways in which central banks inform the public about the future direction of monetary policy and how successful they have been in recent years. Forward guidance is either part of a monetary policy strategy in which an explicit inflation target is targeted or is part of a strategy that attempts to circumvent the effective lower bound regarding the nominal interest rate. In both cases, forward guidance attempts to influence longer-term interest rates and inflation expectations through the expected future short-term interest rates.


Author(s):  
Pierre L. Siklos

Crises come in various forms, and their impact is not predicable with much accuracy. Crises in emerging markets are not the same as those in advanced economies. By 2007, the idea that monetary policy ought to be rules-based was widely accepted and copied around the world. Policymakers believed that inflation and macroeconomic slack were all that mattered. Demographic and structural factors were underappreciated. The wrong conclusions are now being drawn: rules should not be abandoned, but monetary policy can be improved. Monetary policy now relies more on words. An expansion of central bank balance sheets has taken place and central bank independence is a quaint idea. Central banks no longer influence just prices; they also change financial system quantities. This leads to rising policy uncertainty. Central banks stand accused of hubris, with little clear idea of the “new normal” and how this will redefine a future monetary policy strategy.


2022 ◽  
pp. 1-43
Author(s):  
Steffen Ahrens ◽  
Joep Lustenhouwer ◽  
Michele Tettamanzi

Abstract Expectations are among the main driving forces for economic dynamics. Therefore, managing expectations has become a primary objective for monetary policy seeking to stabilize the business cycle. In this paper, we study whether central banks can manage private-sector expectations by means of publishing one-period ahead inflation projections in a New Keynesian learning-to-forecast experiment. Subjects in the experiment observe these projections along with the historic development of the economy and subsequently submit their own one-period ahead inflation forecasts. In this context, we find that the central bank can significantly manage private-sector expectations and that this management strongly supports monetary policy in stabilizing the economy. Moreover, published central bank inflation projections drastically reduce the probability of a deflationary spiral after strong negative shocks to the economy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-165
Author(s):  
Vladyslav Sholopak ◽  

Abstract. Introduction. Incomprehension and misinterpretation of central bank actions by the markets lead to uncertainty. As a result, the volatility of inflation, prices, and assets increases. The low-interest-rate in today’s macroeconomic environment is a common thing. In such circumstances, the economy is so difficult to adapt to internal and external shocks, so inefficiencies caused by incorrect or untimely statements by the regulator can exacerbate the problem and provoke unjustified risks. These new conditions have led to changes in the way information is covered and create a new communication approach. Purpose. Thus, the article aims to systematize the main patterns of forwarding guidance mechanism as a communication tool in monetary policy. Its use in such developed economies as Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union. Identification of major trends in the use of forwarding guidance form during the crises of 2008 and 2020. Determination of why targets are 2% inflation with the description of monetary and communication tools, research of information coverage approaches. Results. The central bank statements affect to decisions of various market participants and can be divided into economic forecasts and forward guidance. According to the forwarding guidance classification, the analysis was made of 2020 statements and compared with the 2008 statements, for each of the studied countries. The finding shows that there has been a shift from economic forecasts to forward guidance. A model consisting of four elements has been identified for the four central banks: target, monetary instruments, statement approach, and information tools. Conclusions. In general, new types such as state-contingent and calendar-based statements began to be used during the last crisis. The most common monetary instrument that appears in statements being the interest rate. The common goals for all central banks are to focus on price stability, which is expressed in inflation of 2%. This target must be long-term and in numerical terms to effectively management inflation expectations and bring down volatility. All banks strive for simplicity and clarity in their statements, and they use a wide range of information tools. Keywords: central bank communicatioт; forward guidance; non-traditional monetary policy instrument.


Author(s):  
Frederic S. Mishkin

This chapter examines how central banking has evolved in recent decades by looking at two main areas of central bank activities: monetary policy and financial stability policy. It starts by describing a set of nine basic scientific principles derived from theory and empirical evidence that now guide thinking at almost all central banks, which is referred to as the science of central banking. Then the essay discusses how the science of monetary policy provides a framework for understanding central bank governance and how modern central banks conduct monetary and financial stability policies. Central banking has entered a brave new world in which challenges have become greater and the conduct of policy has become more complex.


Author(s):  
Nergiz Dincer ◽  
Barry Eichengreen ◽  
Petra Geraats

This chapter analyzes whether and to what extent central banks have continued to be more transparent in their conduct of monetary policy in the postcrisis period. It presents a monetary policy transparency index, that measures the degree of information disclosure about various aspects of the policymaking process for 112 central banks from 1998 until 2015. Compared to previous research, the index has been updated, revised and refined to better capture developments since the global financial crisis, with and explicit focus on monetary policy, more emphasis on the timely disclosure of information, and greater granularity, including for forward guidance. The development and challenges of increasing monetary policy transparency are further analyzed in case studies of the European Central Bank, the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, which illustrate how these prominent central banks have deployed greater transparency as a policy tool in the aftermath of the financial crisis.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document