More than 80 central banks use a committee to take monetary policy decisions. The composition of the committee and the structure of the meeting can affect the quality of the decision making. In this paper we review economic, experimental, sociological and psychological studies to identify criteria for the optimal institutional setting of a monetary committee. These include the optimal size of the committee, measures to encourage independent thinking, a relatively informal structure of the meeting, and abilities to identify and evaluate individual members' performances. Using these criteria, we evaluate the composition and operation of monetary policy committees in various central banks. Our findings indicate that e.g. the monetary policy committee of the Bank of England follows committee best-practice, while the committee structure of other major central banks could be improved.
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Paper provided by Bank of Canada in its series Working Papers with number
07-6.
Find related papers by JEL classification: C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
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