Download or read book The Long Journey of Central Bank Communication written by Otmar Issing and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading economist and former central banker discusses the evolution of central bank communication from secretiveness to transparency and accountability. Central bank communication has evolved from secretiveness to transparency and accountability—from a reluctance to give out any information at all to the belief in communication as a panacea for effective policy. In this book, Otmar Issing, himself a former central banker, discusses the journey toward transparency in central bank communication. Issing traces the development of transparency, examining the Bank of England as an example of extreme reticence and European Central Bank's President Mario Draghi as a practitioner of effective communication. He argues that the ultimate goal of central bank communication is to make monetary policy more effective, and describes the practice and theory of communication as an evolutionary process. For a long time, the Federal Reserve never made its monetary policy decisions public; the European Central Bank, on the other hand, had to adopt a modern communication strategy from the outset. Issing discusses the importance of guiding expectations in central bank communication, and points to financial markets as the most important recipients of this communication. He discusses the obligations of accountability and transparency, although he notes that total transparency is a “mirage.” Issing argues that the central message to the public must always be that the stability of a nation's currency is the bank's priority.

Download or read book Central Bank Communication and Policy Effectiveness written by Michael Woodford and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A notable change in central banking over the past 15 years has been a world-wide movement toward increased communication by central banks about their policy decisions, the targets that they seek to achieve through those decisions, and the central bank's view of the economy's likely future evolution. This paper considers the role of such communication in the successful conduct of monetary policy, with a particular emphasis on an issue that remains controversial: to what extent is it desirable for central banks to comment on the likely path of short-term interest rates? After reviewing general arguments for and against central-bank transparency, the paper considers two specific contexts in which central banks have been forced to consider how much they are willing to say about the future path of interest rates. The first is the experiment with policy signaling by the FOMC in the U.S., using the statement released following each Committee meeting, since August 2003. The second is the need to make some assumption about future policy when producing the projections (for future inflation and other variables) that are central to inflation-forecast targeting procedures, of the kind used by the Bank of England, the Swedish Riksbank, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and others. In both cases, it is argued that increased willingness to share the central bank's own assumptions about future policy with the public has increased the predictability of policy, in ways that are likely to have improved central bank's ability to achieve their stabilization objectives.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Central Banking written by David G. Mayes and published by Oxford Handbooks. This book was released on 2019-03-15 with total page 809 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Handbook reflects the state of the art in the theory and practice of central banking. It covers all the essential areas that have come under scrutiny since the global financial crisis of 2007-9"--

Download or read book How Do Central Banks Talk written by Alan S. Blinder and published by Centre for Economic Policy Research. This book was released on 2001 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not long ago, secrecy was the byword in central banking circles, but now the unmistakable trend is towards greater openness and transparency. This, the third Geneva Report on the World Economy, describes and evaluates some of the changes in how central banks talk to the markets, to the press, and to the public. The report first assesses the case for transparency ? defined as providing sufficient information for the public to understand the policy regime ? and concludes that it is very strong, based on both policy effectiveness and democratic accountability. It then examines what should be the content of communication and argues that central banks ought to spell out their long-run objectives and methods. It then investigates the link between the decision-making process and central bank communication, drawing a distinction between individualistic and collegial committees. The report concludes with a review of the communications strategies of some of the main central banks.

Download or read book The Federal Reserve System Purposes and Functions written by Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an in-depth overview of the Federal Reserve System, including information about monetary policy and the economy, the Federal Reserve in the international sphere, supervision and regulation, consumer and community affairs and services offered by Reserve Banks. Contains several appendixes, including a brief explanation of Federal Reserve regulations, a glossary of terms, and a list of additional publications.

Download or read book Monetary Policy Strategies written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1988-10-04 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The paper considers the merits of rules and discretion for monetary policy when the structure of the macroeconomic model and the probability distributions of disturbances are not well defined. It is argued that when it is costly to delay policy reactions to seldom-experienced shocks until formal algorithmic learning has been accomplished, and when time consistency problems are significant, a mixed strategy that combines a simple verifiable rule with discretion is attractive. The paper also discusses mechanisms for mitigating credibility problems and emphasizes that arguments against various types of simple rules lose their force under a mixed strategy.

Download or read book Talking about Monetary Policy written by Alan S. Blinder and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Central Bank Communication and Monetary Policy Surprises in Chile written by Mr.Andrea Pescatori and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2018-07-06 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper assesses the quality of the CBC’s communication policy by looking at the predictability and effectiveness of monetary policy communications by the Central Bank of Chile (CBC). To do so, we construct indeces of monetary policy surprises for the three major communication channels of the CBC: the release of policy meetings’ statements, minutes, and monetary policy reports (IPoM). We assess monetary policy predictability and efficacy by looking at the size and time-evolution of monetary policy surprises associated with meeting statements and the impact of the above communication channels on asset markets. We find that, in general, the CBC’s has been effective in its forward guidance through its statements and IPoM. Policy actions are quite predictable, especially post the global financia crisis. The response of equity prices and the exchange rate to monetary policy surprises have the right sign but are not robust. We also find an asymmetric response of equity prices to minutes suggesting that market participants extract information on the status of the economy especially when minutes have a loosening effect. Finally, to look at the macroeconomic impact we find that a 100 bps monetary policy tightening shock implies a decline in economic activity (IMACEC) of about 2 pp. after one year, while the response of inflation is more muted.

Download or read book Inflation Expectations written by Peter J. N. Sinclair and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-12-16 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inflation is regarded by the many as a menace that damages business and can only make life worse for households. Keeping it low depends critically on ensuring that firms and workers expect it to be low. So expectations of inflation are a key influence on national economic welfare. This collection pulls together a galaxy of world experts (including Roy Batchelor, Richard Curtin and Staffan Linden) on inflation expectations to debate different aspects of the issues involved. The main focus of the volume is on likely inflation developments. A number of factors have led practitioners and academic observers of monetary policy to place increasing emphasis recently on inflation expectations. One is the spread of inflation targeting, invented in New Zealand over 15 years ago, but now encompassing many important economies including Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain. Even more significantly, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the United States Federal Bank are the leading members of another group of monetary institutions all considering or implementing moves in the same direction. A second is the large reduction in actual inflation that has been observed in most countries over the past decade or so. These considerations underscore the critical – and largely underrecognized - importance of inflation expectations. They emphasize the importance of the issues, and the great need for a volume that offers a clear, systematic treatment of them. This book, under the steely editorship of Peter Sinclair, should prove very important for policy makers and monetary economists alike.

Download or read book Writing Clearly written by Mr.Martin Cihak and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The paper presents a methodology for measuring the clarity of central bank communication, illustrating it with the case of the European Central Bank (ECB) in 1999-2007. The analysis identifies the ECB's written communication as clear about 95 percent of instances, which is comparable to, or even better than, other central banks for which a similar analysis is available. We also find that the additional information contained in the ECB's Monthly Bulletins helps to improve communication clarity compared to ECB's press releases. In particular, the Bulletins contain useful clarifying information on individual inflation factors and the overall forecast risk; in contrast, the bulletin's communication on monetary shocks has a negative, albeit small, impact on clarity.

Download or read book Imperfect Central Bank Communication Information Versus Distraction written by Pär Österholm and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2008-03 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of the information communicated by central banks is noisy or imperfect. This paper considers the potential benefits and limitations of central bank communications in a model of imperfect knowledge and learning. It is shown that the value of communicating imperfect information is ambiguous. There is a risk that the central bank can distract the public; this means that the central bank may prefer to focus its communication policies on the information it knows most about. Indeed, conveying more certain information may improve the public's understanding to the extent that it "crowds out" a role for communicating imperfect information.

Download or read book Central Bank Communication Decision Making and Governance written by Pierre L. Siklos and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-05-31 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts analyze the recent emphasis on central communication as an additional policy and accountability device. In recent years central bankers have placed new emphasis on communication with financial markets and the general public. They have done this not only through the traditional channel of monetary policy pronouncements but also by increasing the quantity of information they make public. Yet as central banks strive to provide more and clearer information about the outlook for the economy, they must balance their capacity to steer economic expectations with their natural caution about committing to future monetary policy paths. This volume offers a variety of perspectives on the economic implications of increased central bank communication. Contributors offer theoretical analyses of the effect of central bank communication on the general macroeconomic environment; consider a variety of novel empirical approaches to the issue; and analyze communication, decision making, and governance practices of the Greenspan-era U.S. Federal Reserve, the fledgling European Central Bank, and a variety of smaller central banks, including those of the Czech Republic, Sweden, England, and New Zealand. Contributors Helge Berger, Michelle Bligh, Marianna Blix-Grimaldi, Aleš Bulíř, Robert Chirinko, Martin Čihák, Christopher Curran, Paul De Grauwe, Jakob de Haan, Michael Ehrmann, Marcel Fratzscher, Petra Geraats, Gregory Hess, Roman Horváth, David-Jan Jansen, Özer Karagedikli, Michael Lamla, David Mayes, Alberto Montagnoli, Pierre L. Siklos, Kateřina Šmídková, Jan-Egbert Sturm, Jan Zápal

Download or read book Clarity of Central Bank Communication About Inflation written by Mr.Ales Bulir and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines whether the clarity of central bank communication about inflation has changed with the economic environment. We use readability statistics and content analysis to study the clarity of communication on the inflation outlook by seven central banks between 1997 and 2010. Overall, we find no strong indications that central banks were less clear in explaining their policies when faced with higher uncertainty or a less favorable inflation outlook. The global financial crisis, however, did have a negative impact on clarity of central bank communication.

Download or read book Monetary Policy Committees Learning and Communication written by Anke Weber and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper considers optimal communication by monetary policy committees in a model of imperfect knowledge and learning. The main policy implications are that there may be costs to central bank communication if the public is perpetually learning about the committee's decision-making process and policy preferences. When committee members have heterogeneous policy preferences, welfare is greater under majority voting than under consensus decision-making. Furthermore, central bank communication under majority voting is more likely to be beneficial in this case. It is also shown that a chairman with stable policy preferences who carries significant weight in the monetary policy decision-making process is welfare enhancing.

Download or read book The European Central Bank written by Jakob De Haan and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2005-04-15 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the debates on European Central Bank monetary policy, focusing on issues of transparency, credibility, and accountability and the effect of the ECB's decentralized structure. The adoption of the euro in 1999 by 11 member states of the European Union created a single currency area second in economic size only to the United States. The euro zone's monetary policy is now set by the European Central Bank (ECB) and its Governing Council rather than by individual national central banks. This CESifo volume examines issues that have arisen in the first years of ECB monetary policy and analyzes the effect that current ECB policy strategy and structures may have in the future. After a detailed description and assessment of ECB monetary policy making that focuses on such issues as price stability and the predictability of policy decisions, the book turns to two important issues faced by European central bankers: the transparency and credibility of decision making and the ECB's decentralized structure. After showing that transparency in decision making enhances credibility, the book discusses the ECB's efforts at openness, its political independence as guaranteed by law, and its ultimate accountability. The book then considers the effects of the decentralized ECB structure, focusing on business cycle synchronization, inflation differentials, and differences in monetary policy transmission in light of the enlargement of the monetary union. The book also discusses options for ECB institutional reforms, including centralization, vote weighting, and cross-border regional banks.

Download or read book Evolving Monetary Policy Frameworks in Low Income and Other Developing Countries written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-10-23 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past two decades, many low- and lower-middle income countries (LLMICs) have improved control over fiscal policy, liberalized and deepened financial markets, and stabilized inflation at moderate levels. Monetary policy frameworks that have helped achieve these ends are being challenged by continued financial development and increased exposure to global capital markets. Many policymakers aspire to move beyond the basics of stability to implement monetary policy frameworks that better anchor inflation and promote macroeconomic stability and growth. Many of these LLMICs are thus considering and implementing improvements to their monetary policy frameworks. The recent successes of some LLMICs and the experiences of emerging and advanced economies, both early in their policy modernization process and following the global financial crisis, are valuable in identifying desirable features of such frameworks. This paper draws on those lessons to provide guidance on key elements of effective monetary policy frameworks for LLMICs.

Download or read book The Quiet Revolution written by Alan S. Blinder and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although little noticed, the face of central banking has changed significantly over the past ten to fifteen years, says the author of this enlightening book. Alan S. Blinder, a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve System and member of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, shows that the changes, though quiet, have been sufficiently profound to constitute a revolution in central banking. Blinder considers three of the most significant aspects of the revolution. The first is the shift toward transparency: whereas central bankers once believed in secrecy and even mystery, greater openness is now considered a virtue. The second is the transition from monetary policy decisions made by single individuals to decisions made by committees. The third change is a profoundly different attitude toward the markets, from that of stern schoolmarm to one of listener. With keenness and balance, the author examines the origins of these changes and their pros and cons.