IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v101y2011i4p1561-74.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal Policy Intervention and the Social Value of Public Information

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan G. James
  • Phillip Lawler

Abstract

Svensson (2006) argues that Morris and Shin (2002) is, contrary to what is claimed, pro-transparency. This paper reexamines the issue but with an important modification to the original Morris and Shin framework. Recognizing that central banks impact the economy not only indirectly via public announcements, but also directly through policy actions, we consider the social value of public information in the presence of active policy intervention. Our results strengthen Morris and Shin's conclusions considerably: in particular, we find that public disclosure of the central bank's information is unambiguously, i.e., regardless of parameter values, undesirable. (JEL D82, D83, E52, E58)

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan G. James & Phillip Lawler, 2011. "Optimal Policy Intervention and the Social Value of Public Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1561-1574, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:101:y:2011:i:4:p:1561-74
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.4.1561
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Garfinkel, Michelle R. & Oh, Seonghwan, 1995. "When and how much to talk credibility and flexibility in monetary policy with private information," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 341-357, April.
    2. McCallum, Bennett T., 1997. "Crucial issues concerning central bank independence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 99-112, June.
    3. Faust, Jon & Svensson, Lars E O, 2002. "The Equilibrium Degree of Transparency and Control in Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(2), pages 520-539, May.
    4. George-Marios Angeletos & Alessandro Pavan, 2009. "Policy with Dispersed Information," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(1), pages 11-60, March.
    5. Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2002. "Social Value of Public Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1521-1534, December.
    6. Lars E. O. Svensson, 2006. "Social Value of Public Information: Comment: Morris and Shin (2002) Is Actually Pro-Transparency, Not Con," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 448-452, March.
    7. Alan S. Blinder, 1997. "Distinguished Lecture on Economics in Government: What Central Bankers Could Learn from Academics--And Vice Versa," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 3-19, Spring.
    8. Russell Cooper & Andrew John, 1988. "Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(3), pages 441-463.
    9. Henrik Jensen, 2002. "Optimal Degrees of Transparency in Monetary Policymaking," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 104(3), pages 399-422, September.
    10. George-Marios Angeletos & Alessandro Pavan, 2007. "Socially Optimal Coordination: Characterization and Policy Implications," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(2-3), pages 585-593, 04-05.
    11. Stein, Jeremy C, 1989. "Cheap Talk and the Fed: A Theory of Imprecise Policy Announcements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 32-42, March.
    12. Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin & Hui Tong, 2006. "Social Value of Public Information: Morris and Shin (2002) Is Actually Pro-Transparency, Not Con: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 453-455, March.
    13. Mr. Mauro F Roca, 2010. "Transparency and Monetary Policy with Imperfect Common Knowledge," IMF Working Papers 2010/091, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. van der Cruijsen, C.A.B., 2008. "The economic impact of central bank transparency," Other publications TiSEM 86c1ba91-1952-45b4-adac-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    2. van der Cruijsen, C.A.B. & Eijffinger, S.C.W., 2007. "The Economic Impact of Central Bank Transparency : A Survey," Discussion Paper 2007-06, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    3. Facundo Albornoz & Joan-Maria Esteban & Paolo Vanin, 2009. "Government Information Transparency," Working Papers 392, Barcelona School of Economics.
    4. Julian A. Parra POlanía, 2012. "Transparency: can central banks commit to truthful communication?," Borradores de Economia 711, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    5. Jonathan G James & Phillip Lawler, 2017. "Optimal Transparency and Policy Intervention with Heterogeneous Signals and Information Stickiness," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(5), pages 577-600, September.
    6. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5221 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Meixing Dai & Moïse Sidiropoulos, 2017. "How multiplicative uncertainty affects the tradeoff between information disclosure and stabilisation policy?," Working Papers of BETA 2017-15, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    8. Bruno Ducoudre, 2008. "Structure par terme des taux d’intérêt et anticipations de la politique économique," Sciences Po publications info:hdl:2441/5221, Sciences Po.
    9. Elmar Mertens, 2016. "Managing Beliefs about Monetary Policy under Discretion," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(4), pages 661-698, June.
    10. James, Jonathan G. & Lawler, Phillip, 2012. "Heterogeneous information quality; strategic complementarities and optimal policy design," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 342-352.
    11. Turdaliev, Nurlan, 2010. "Communication in repeated monetary policy games," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 228-243, April.
    12. Jonathan G. James & Phillip Lawler, 2015. "Heterogeneous private sector information, central bank disclosure, and stabilization policy," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(2), pages 620-634, October.
    13. Camille Cornand & Frank Heinemann, 2014. "Measuring agents’ reaction to private and public information in games with strategic complementarities," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 61-77, March.
    14. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Hwang, In Do & Lustenberger, Thomas & Rossi, Enzo, 2021. "Does communication influence executives’ opinion of central bank policy?☆," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    16. Luca Colombo & Gianluca Femminis & Alessandro Pavan, 2014. "Information Acquisition and Welfare," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(4), pages 1438-1483.
    17. Chari, V.V. & Pérez, Luis, 2022. "Comment on Iovino, La’O and Mascarenhas, “Optimal Monetary Policy and Disclosure with an Informationally-Constrained Central Banker”," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 173-181.
    18. Wasim Shahid Malik & Musleh-ud Din, 2008. "Monetary Policy Transparency in Pakistan: An Independent Analysis," PIDE-Working Papers 2008:44, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    19. Kohlhas, Alexandre N., 2020. "An informational rationale for action over disclosure," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    20. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Jacob Wong, 2008. "Information acquisition, dissemination, and transparency of monetary policy," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 41(1), pages 46-79, February.
    22. Ippei Fujiwara & Yuichiro Waki, 2022. "The Delphic forward guidance puzzle in New Keynesian models," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 280-301, October.
    23. David P. Myatt & Chris Wallace, 2008. "On the Sources and Value of Information: Public Announcements and Macroeconomic Performance," Economics Series Working Papers 411, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:101:y:2011:i:4:p:1561-74. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.