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Inflation Targeting, Committee Decision Making and Uncertainty: The Case of the Bank of England’s MPC

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  • Arnab Bhattacharjee

    ()

  • Sean Holly

    ()

Abstract

The transparency and openness of the monetary policymaking process at the Bank of England has provided very detailed information on both the decisions of individual members of the Monetary Policy Committee and the information on which they are based. In this paper we consider this decision making process in the context of a model in which inflation forecast targeting is used but there is heterogeneity among the members of the committee. We find that internally generated forecasts of output and market generated expectations of medium term inflation provide the best description of discrete changes in interest rates. We also find a role for asset prices through the equity market, foreign exchange market and housing prices. There are also identifiable forms of heterogeneity among members of the committee that improves the predictability of interest rate changes. This can be thought of as supporting the argument that full transparency of monetary policy decision making can be welfare enhancing.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis in its series CDMA Working Paper Series with number 0503.

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Date of creation: Feb 2005
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Handle: RePEc:san:cdmawp:0503

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Keywords: Intertemporal macro; Monetary policy; interest rates; monetary policy committee; committee decision making.;

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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Hansen, Stephen & McMahon, Michael, 2011. "How Experts Decide : Identifying Preferences versus Signals from Policy Decisions," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 963, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
  2. Roman Horváth & Katerina Šmídková & Jan Zápal, 2012. "Central Banks' Voting Records and Future Policy," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 8(4), pages 1-19, December.
  3. Stephen Hansen & Michael F. McMahon, 2008. "Delayed Doves: MPC Voting Behaviour of Externals," CEP Discussion Papers dp0862, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  4. Hansen, Stephen & McMahon, Michael, 2010. "What Do Outside Experts Bring To A Committee? Evidence From The Bank of England," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 946, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
  5. Mark Harris & Paul Levine & Christopher Spencer, 2011. "A decade of dissent: explaining the dissent voting behavior of Bank of England MPC members," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(3), pages 413-442, March.
  6. Arnab Bhattacharjee & Sean Holly, 2006. " Taking Personalities out of Monetary Policy Decision Making? Interactions, Heterogeneity and Committee Decisions in the Bank of England’s MPC," CDMA Working Paper Series 0612, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis.
  7. Brooks, Robert & Harris, Mark & Spencer, Christopher, 2007. "An Inflated Ordered Probit Model of Monetary Policy: Evidence from MPC Voting Data," MPRA Paper 8509, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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