IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/manchs/v71y2003i5p498-520.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Imperfect transparency and the strategic use of information: an ever present temptation for central bankers?

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Hughes Hallett
  • Nicola Viegi

Abstract

Most economists argue that transparency in monetary policy is desirable because it helps the private sector make better informed decisions. They also argue that a lack of transparency has been a key problem in Europe's monetary policy. Using standard models—where there are also opportunities to use fiscal policy—we show that a lack of transparency will have very different effects depending on whether it represents a lack of political transparency or a lack of economic (or information) transparency. The former allows the central bank to create and exploit a ‘strategic’ reputation to its own advantage. The latter does not. Thus, political transparency helps us understand how monetary policy decisions are made. But economic transparency would reveal what information went into those decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Hughes Hallett & Nicola Viegi, 2003. "Imperfect transparency and the strategic use of information: an ever present temptation for central bankers?," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 71(5), pages 498-520, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:manchs:v:71:y:2003:i:5:p:498-520
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-9957.00364
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9957.00364
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-9957.00364?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William D. Nordhaus, 1994. "Policy games: Coordination and Independece in Monetary and Fiscal Policies," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 25(2), pages 139-216.
    2. 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.
    3. Julio J. Rotemberg & Michael Woodford, 1998. "An Optimization-Based Econometric Framework for the Evaluation of Monetary Policy: Expanded Version," NBER Technical Working Papers 0233, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Beetsma, Roel M W J & Jensen, Henrik, 1998. "Inflation Targets and Contracts with Uncertain Central Banker Preferences," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 30(3), pages 384-403, August.
    5. 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.
    6. King, Mervyn, 1997. "Changes in UK monetary policy: Rules and discretion in practice," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 81-97, June.
    7. Canzoneri, Matthew B, 1985. "Monetary Policy Games and the Role of Private Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(5), pages 1056-1070, December.
    8. Barro, Robert J & Gordon, David B, 1983. "A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural Rate Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(4), pages 589-610, August.
    9. 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.
    10. Matthew B. Canzoneri & Robert E. Cumby & Behzad T. Diba, 2001. "Is the Price Level Determined by the Needs of Fiscal Solvency?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1221-1238, December.
    11. Henrik Jensen, 2002. "Optimal Degrees of Transparency in Monetary Policymaking," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 104(3), pages 399-422, September.
    12. Kenneth N. Kuttner & Adam S. Posen, 2000. "Inflation, Monetary Transparency, and G3 Exchange Rate Volatility," Working Paper Series WP00-6, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    13. Jakob De Haan & Sylvester C.W. Eijffinger, 2000. "The Democratic Accountability of the European Central Bank: A Comment on Two Fairy‐tales," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 393-407, September.
    14. 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.
    15. Alesina, Alberto & Gatti, Roberta, 1995. "Independent Central Banks: Low Inflation at No Cost?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 196-200, May.
    16. Alex Cukierman, 1992. "Central Bank Strategy, Credibility, and Independence: Theory and Evidence," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262031981, December.
    17. Cukierman, Alex & Meltzer, Allan H, 1986. "A Theory of Ambiguity, Credibility, and Inflation under Discretion and Asymmetric Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1099-1128, September.
    18. Roberts, John M, 1995. "New Keynesian Economics and the Phillips Curve," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(4), pages 975-984, November.
    19. Sibert, Anne, 2002. "Monetary policy with uncertain central bank preferences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(6), pages 1093-1109, June.
    20. Petra M. Geraats, 2002. "Central Bank Transparency," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(483), pages 532-565, November.
    21. Muscatelli, Anton, 1998. "Optimal Inflation Contracts and Inflation Targets with Uncertain Central Bank Preferences: Accountability through Independence?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(447), pages 529-542, March.
    22. Antulio N. Bomfim & Vincent Reinhart, 2000. "Making news: financial market effects of Federal Reserve disclosure practices," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2000-14, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    23. Balke, Nathan S & Haslag, Joseph H, 1992. "A Theory of Fed Watching in a Macroeconomic Policy Game," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 33(3), pages 619-628, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meixing Dai & Qiao Zhang, 2017. "Central bank transparency under the cost channel," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 189-209, June.
    2. Meixing Dai & Moïse Sidiropoulos & Eleftherios Spyromitros, 2015. "Fiscal Policy, Institutional Quality and Central Bank Transparency," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 83(5), pages 523-545, September.
    3. Meixing Dai & Moïse Sidiropoulos, 2011. "Fiscal disciplining effect of central bank opacity: Stackelberg versus Nash equilibrium," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(4), pages 3068-3076.
    4. Meixing Dai, 2016. "Static And Dynamic Effects Of Central Bank Transparency," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(1), pages 55-78, January.
    5. Meixing Dai & Moïse Sidiropoulos, 2009. "Public investment, distortionary taxes and monetary policy transparency," Working Papers of BETA 2009-30, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    6. Dai, Meixing & Sidiropoulos, Moise, 2008. "Fiscal Policy in a Monetary Union in the Presence of Uncertainty about the Central Bank Preferences," MPRA Paper 13907, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2009.
    7. Dai, Meixing & Sidiropoulos, Moïse, 2011. "Monetary and fiscal policy interactions with central bank transparency and public investment," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 195-208, September.
    8. Jan Libich, 2006. "Inflexibility Of Inflation Targeting Revisited: Modeling The "Anchoring" Effect," CAMA Working Papers 2006-02, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    9. Hughes Hallett, Andrew & Libich, Jan, 2006. "Central Bank Independence, Accountability and Transparency: Complements or Strategic Substitutes?," CEPR Discussion Papers 5470, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Williams, Andrew, 2015. "A global index of information transparency and accountability," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 804-824.
    11. 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.
    12. Turdaliev, Nurlan, 2009. "Transparency in monetary policy: A general equilibrium approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 608-613, May.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Meixing Dai & Qiao Zhang, 2013. "Central bank transparency with the cost channel," Working Papers of BETA 2013-06, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.

    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. Hughes Hallett, Andrew & Demertzis, Maria, 2003. "Three Models of Imperfect Transparency in Monetary Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 4117, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Demertzis, Maria & Hughes Hallett, Andrew, 2007. "Central Bank transparency in theory and practice," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 760-789, December.
    3. Maria Demertzis & Andrew Hughes Hallett, 2015. "Three different approaches to transparency in monetary policy," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 32(3), pages 277-300, December.
    4. Sibert, Anne, 2006. "Is Central Bank Transparency Desirable?," CEPR Discussion Papers 5641, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Meixing Dai & Eleftherios Spyromitros, 2010. "Accountability And Transparency About Central Bank Preferences For Model Robustness," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 57(2), pages 212-237, May.
    9. Hughes Hallett, Andrew & Viegi, Nicola, 2001. "Credibility, Transparency and Asymmetric Information in Monetary Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 2671, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Dai, Meixing & Sidiropoulos, Moise, 2008. "Fiscal Policy in a Monetary Union in the Presence of Uncertainty about the Central Bank Preferences," MPRA Paper 13907, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2009.
    11. Paul Hubert, 2010. "Monetary policy, imperfect information and the expectations channel [Politique monétaire,information imparfaite et canal des anticipations]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-04095385, HAL.
    12. Winkler, Bernhard, 2000. "Which kind of transparency? On the need for clarity in monetary policy-making," Working Paper Series 0026, European Central Bank.
    13. Giuseppe Ciccarone & Giovanni Di Bartolomeo & Enrico Marchetti, 2005. "Supply- side Fiscal Policy, Conservativeness, and Central Bank trasparency," Working Papers in Public Economics 77, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.
    14. 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.
    15. Hughes Hallett, Andrew & Demertzis, Maria, 2005. "Forming Rational Expectations and When it is Right to be 'Wrong'," CEPR Discussion Papers 5042, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Meixing Dai & Moïse Sidiropoulos & Eleftherios Spyromitros, 2015. "Fiscal Policy, Institutional Quality and Central Bank Transparency," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 83(5), pages 523-545, September.
    17. Demertzis, Maria & Hughes Hallett, Andrew, 2008. "Asymmetric information and rational expectations: When is it right to be "wrong"?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(8), pages 1407-1419, December.
    18. Dai, Meixing & Sidiropoulos, Moïse, 2009. "Public investment, distortionary taxes and monetary policy transparency," MPRA Paper 15858, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Paul Hubert, 2010. "Monetary Policy, Imperfect Information and the Expectations Channel," Sciences Po publications info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1u, Sciences Po.
    21. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5221 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Sandra Waller & Jakob de Haan & Jakob de Haan, 2004. "Credibility and Transparency of Central Banks: New Results Based on Ifo’s World Economicy Survey," CESifo Working Paper Series 1199, CESifo.

    More about this item

    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:bla:manchs:v:71:y:2003:i:5:p:498-520. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/semanuk.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.