IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/cesifo/v52y2006i1p111-152.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transparency of Monetary Policy: Theory and Practice

Author

Listed:
  • Petra M. Geraats

Abstract

Transparency has become one of the main features of monetary policymaking during the last decade. This article establishes stylized facts and provides a systematic overview of the practice of monetary policy transparency around the world. It shows much diversity in information disclosure, even for central banks with the same monetary policy framework, including inflation targeting. Nevertheless, the study finds significant differences in transparency across monetary policy frameworks. The empirical findings are explained using key insights distilled from the theoretical literature. Thus, this article aims to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of monetary policy transparency. (JEL codes: E58, D82) Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Petra M. Geraats, 2006. "Transparency of Monetary Policy: Theory and Practice," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 52(1), pages 111-152, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cesifo:v:52:y:2006:i:1:p:111-152
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cesifo/ifj004
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frederic S Mishkin, 2004. "Can Central Bank Transparency Go Too Far?," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Christopher Kent & Simon Guttmann (ed.),The Future of Inflation Targeting, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    2. Joe Peek & Eric S. Rosengren & Geoffrey M. B. Tootell, 1999. "Is Bank Supervision Central to Central Banking?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 629-653.
    3. Lohmann, Susanne, 1992. "Optimal Commitment in Monetary Policy: Credibility versus Flexibility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 273-286, March.
    4. Svensson, Lars E. O., 1997. "Inflation forecast targeting: Implementing and monitoring inflation targets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1111-1146, June.
    5. Rudin, Jeremy R., 1988. "Central bank secrecy, `fed watching', and the predictability of interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 317-334, September.
    6. Hans Gersbach & Volker Hahn, 2004. "Voting Transparency, Conflicting Interests, And The Appointment Of Central Bankers," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16, pages 321-345, November.
    7. Eijffinger, Sylvester C.W. & Geraats, Petra M., 2006. "How transparent are central banks?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 1-21, March.
    8. Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Matías Tapia, 2002. "Monetary Policy Implementation and Results in Twenty Inflation-Targeting Countries," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 166, Central Bank of Chile.
    9. Georgios Chortareas & David Stasavage & Gabriel Sterne, 2002. "Does it pay to be transparent? international evidence form central bank forecasts," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 84(Jul), pages 99-118.
    10. Ehrmann, Michael & Fratzscher, Marcel, 2005. "Communication and decision-making by central bank committees: different strategies, same effectiveness?," Working Paper Series 488, European Central Bank.
    11. Ben S. Bernanke & Michael Woodford, 1997. "Inflation forecasts and monetary policy," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 653-686.
    12. Henrik Jensen, 2002. "Optimal Degrees of Transparency in Monetary Policymaking," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 104(3), pages 399-422, September.
    13. Schmidt-Hebbel, Klaus & Tapia, Matias, 2002. "Inflation targeting in Chile," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 125-146, August.
    14. Faust, Jon & Svensson, Lars E O, 2001. "Transparency and Credibility: Monetary Policy with Unobservable Goals," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 42(2), pages 369-397, May.
    15. Stephen G. Cecchetti & Michael Ehrmann, 2002. "Does Inflation Targeting Increase Output Volatility?: An International Comparison of Policymakers' Preferences and Outcomes," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series (ed.),Monetary Policy: Rules and Transmission Mechanisms, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 9, pages 247-274, Central Bank of Chile.
    16. EllenE. Meade & David Stasavage, 2008. "Publicity of Debate and the Incentive to Dissent: Evidence from the US Federal Reserve," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(528), pages 695-717, April.
    17. Anne Sibert, 2003. "Monetary Policy Committees: Individual and Collective Reputations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 649-665.
    18. Goodfriend, Marvin, 1986. "Monetary mystique: Secrecy and central banking," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 63-92, January.
    19. S[empty]rensen, Jan Rose, 1991. "Political uncertainty and macroeconomic performance," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 377-381, December.
    20. Geraats, Petra M., 1999. "Inflation and Its Variation: An Alternative Explanation," Center for International and Development Economics Research, Working Paper Series qt56b2g3vn, Center for International and Development Economics Research, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    21. Eric T. Swanson, 2004. "Federal Reserve transparency and financial market forecasts of short-term interest rates," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-06, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    22. Geraats Petra M., 2005. "Transparency and Reputation: The Publication of Central Bank Forecasts," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-28, February.
    23. Hans Gersbach & Volker Hahn, 2004. "Voting Transparency, Conflicting Interests, And The Appointment Of Central Bankers," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(3), pages 321-345, November.
    24. Hans Gersbach & Volker Hahn, 2009. "Voting Transparency in a Monetary Union," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(5), pages 831-853, August.
    25. Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2005. "Central Bank Transparency and the Signal Value of Prices," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 36(2), pages 1-66.
    26. 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.
    27. Kenneth Rogoff, 1985. "The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1169-1189.
    28. Alex Cukierman, 2002. "Are contemporary central banks transparent about economic models and objectives and what difference does it make?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 84(Jul), pages 15-36.
    29. Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto, 2002. "Inflation Targeting: An Overview," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Editor) (ed.),Inflation Targeting: Desing, Performance, Challenges, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 1, pages 001-022, Central Bank of Chile.
    30. Georgios Chortareas & David Stasavage & Gabriel Sterne, 2003. "Does monetary policy transparency reduce disinflation costs?," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 71(5), pages 521-540, September.
    31. Petra M. Geraats, 2007. "The Mystique of Central Bank Speak," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 3(1), pages 37-80, March.
    32. Geraats, Petra Maria, 2001. "Precommitment, Transparency and Monetary Policy," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2001,12, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    33. Tong, Hui, 2007. "Disclosure standards and market efficiency: Evidence from analysts' forecasts," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 222-241, May.
    34. Alan S. Blinder, 2000. "Central-Bank Credibility: Why Do We Care? How Do We Build It?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1421-1431, December.
    35. Paul Mizen (ed.), 2003. "Central Banking, Monetary Theory and Practice," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2329.
    36. Geraats, Petra M., 2000. "Why Adopt Transparency? The Publication of Central Bank Forecasts," Center for International and Development Economics Research, Working Paper Series qt0hw7h7cp, Center for International and Development Economics Research, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    37. David H. Romer & Christina D. Romer, 2000. "Federal Reserve Information and the Behavior of Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 429-457, June.
    38. Frederic Mishkin & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel, 2002. "A Decade of Inflation Targeting in the World: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know?," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Editor) (ed.),Inflation Targeting: Desing, Performance, Challenges, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 4, pages 171-220, Central Bank of Chile.
    39. Frederic S. Mishkin & Adam S. Posen, 1997. "Inflation targeting: lessons from four countries," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 3(Aug), pages 9-110.
    40. Petra M. Geraats, 2002. "Central Bank Transparency," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(483), pages 532-565, November.
    41. Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2002. "Social Value of Public Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1521-1534, December.
    42. Petra Gerlach‐Kristen, 2004. "Is the MPC's Voting Record Informative about Future UK Monetary Policy?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(2), pages 299-313, June.
    43. 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. Petra Geraats, 2014. "Monetary Policy Transparency," CESifo Working Paper Series 4611, CESifo.
    4. Petra M. Geraats, 2009. "Trends in Monetary Policy Transparency," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(2), pages 235-268, August.
    5. Eijffinger, Sylvester C.W. & Geraats, Petra M., 2006. "How transparent are central banks?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 1-21, March.
    6. Ngomba Bodi, Francis Ghislain & Tadadjeu Wemba, Dessy-Karl & Soulemanou, Soulemanou, 2020. "Transparence des Banques Centrales et efficacité de la politique monétaire : quelles implications pour la Banque des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale ? [Central Bank's Transparency and effectiveness of ," MPRA Paper 116436, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. 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.
    8. Alex Cukierman, 2009. "The Limits of Transparency," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 38(1‐2), pages 1-37, February.
    9. Seth B. Carpenter, 2004. "Transparency and monetary policy: what does the academic literature tell policymakers?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-35, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Geraats, P.M., 2005. "Political Pressures and Monetary Mystique," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0557, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    11. Giuseppe Ciccarone & Enrico Marchetti & Giovanni Di Bartolomeo, 2007. "Unions, Fiscal Policy And Central Bank Transparency," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 75(5), pages 617-633, September.
    12. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5221 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. 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.
    14. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher & Jakob De Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2008. "Central Bank Communication and Monetary Policy: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 910-945, December.
    15. Ma, Yong & Li, Shushu, 2015. "Bayesian estimation of China's monetary policy transparency: A New Keynesian approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 236-248.
    16. Crowe, Christopher & Meade, Ellen E., 2008. "Central bank independence and transparency: Evolution and effectiveness," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 763-777, December.
    17. Bernd Hayo & Ummad Mazhar, 2014. "Monetary Policy Committee Transparency: Measurement, Determinants, and Economic Effects," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 739-770, September.
    18. Mariusz Jarmuzek & Lucjan T. Orlowski & Artur Radziwill, 2004. "Monetary Policy Transparency in Inflation Targeting Countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland," CASE Network Studies and Analyses 0281, CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research.
    19. Zafar Hayat, 2017. "Pakistan’s Monetary Policy: Some Fundamental Issues," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 56(1), pages 31-58.
    20. Geraats Petra M., 2005. "Transparency and Reputation: The Publication of Central Bank Forecasts," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-28, February.
    21. Shambaugh, George E. & Shen, Elaine B., 2018. "A clear advantage: The benefits of transparency to crisis recovery," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 391-416.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

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

    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:oup:cesifo:v:52:y:2006:i:1:p:111-152. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.