IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gmf/journl/y2004i20p22-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Short-term Deviations from Monetary Policy Commitment in a Monetary Union: The degrees of freedom of an independent Central Bank

Author

Listed:
  • Muriel Dal-Pont

    (University of Nice Antipolis)

  • Dominique Torre

    (University of Nice Antipolis)

  • Elise Tosi

    (University of Nice Antipolis)

Abstract

The paper presents a model analyzing the degrees of freedom of an independent but committed Central Bank within a monetary union. In the model, interactions between Agents, Supranational Political Authorities and the Central Bank of the Union determine the current nominal and real outcomes. Imperfectly distributed information on shocks affecting supply, transmission channels and short-term expectations create opportunities for a Central Bank to deviate from its announced objective. This opportunity to deviate especially applies to Central Banks free from any kind of inflationary bias and committed to a strictly nominal target. Under certain conditions we show that nominal deviations from stated targets are not observable either by Agents or the Supranational Political Authority that periodically selects the membership of the Council of Monetary Policy of the Bank. Those deviations increase the variance of nominal values but dampen fluctuations of real income. Our results confirm, within a monetary union, the position defended by Cukierman and Metzler concerning the efficiency of a Central Bank’s ambiguous behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Muriel Dal-Pont & Dominique Torre & Elise Tosi, 2004. "Short-term Deviations from Monetary Policy Commitment in a Monetary Union: The degrees of freedom of an independent Central Bank," Notas Económicas, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, issue 20, pages 22-38, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gmf:journl:y:2004:i:20:p:22-38
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://impactum-journals.uc.pt/notaseconomicas/article/view/2183-203X_20_2/2879
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Lohmann, Susanne, 1992. "Optimal Commitment in Monetary Policy: Credibility versus Flexibility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 273-286, March.
    3. Helge Berger & Jakob De Haan & Sylvester C.W. Eijffinger, 2001. "Central Bank Independence: An Update of Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(1), pages 3-40, February.
    4. Fratianni, Michele & von Hagen, Jurgen & Waller, Christopher J, 1997. "Central Banking as a Political Principal-Agent Problem," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(2), pages 378-393, April.
    5. Anton Muscatelli & Carmine Trecroci, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules, Policy Preferences, and Uncertainty: Recent Empirical Evidence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(5), pages 597-627, December.
    6. Waller, Christopher J, 1989. "Monetary Policy Games and Central Bank Politics," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 21(4), pages 422-431, November.
    7. Banaian, King & Luksetich, William A, 2001. "Central Bank Independence, Economic Freedom, and Inflation Rates," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(1), pages 149-161, January.
    8. 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.
    9. Eijffinger, Sylvester C W & Hoeberichts, Marco, 1998. "The Trade off between Central Bank Independence and Conservativeness," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(3), pages 397-411, July.
    10. Xiang Lin, 1999. "Central-Bank Independence, Economic Behavior, and Optimal Term Lengths: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 1056-1062, September.
    11. Francesco Lippi, 1998. "On Central Bank Independence and the Stability of Policy Targets," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(2), pages 495-512, June.
    12. Waller, Christopher J & Walsh, Carl E, 1996. "Central-Bank Independence, Economic Behavior, and Optimal Term Lengths," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1139-1153, December.
    13. Temple, Jonathan, 1998. "Central bank independence and inflation: good news and bad news," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 215-219, November.
    14. Alan S. Blinder, 1999. "Central Banking in Theory and Practice," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262522608, December.
    15. Andrew Brociner & Odile Chagny, 1996. "La Bundesbank : une orthodoxie pragmatique," Revue de l'OFCE, Programme National Persée, vol. 56(1), pages 95-119.
    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. Lohmann, Susanne, 1997. "Partisan control of the money supply and decentralized appointment powers," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 225-246, May.
    2. Berthold Herrendorf & Manfred J.M. Neumann, 2003. "The Political Economy of Inflation, Labour Market Distortions and Central Bank Independence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(484), pages 43-64, January.
    3. Donato Masciandaro & Davide Romelli, 2019. "Behavioral Monetary Policymaking: Economics, Political Economy and Psychology," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Behavioral Finance The Coming of Age, chapter 9, pages 285-329, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Eric Le Borgne, 2005. "The politics of central bank independence: a theory of pandering and learning in government," Staff Reports 205, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    5. D. Masciandaro, 2019. "What Bird Is That? Central Banking And Monetary Policy In The Last Forty Years," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 19127, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    6. Carl E. Walsh, 2002. "When should central bankers be fired?," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 1-21, March.
    7. Hayo, Bernd & Hefeker, Carsten, 2002. "Reconsidering central bank independence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 653-674, November.
    8. Masciandaro, Donato & Romelli, Davide, 2015. "Ups and downs of central bank independence from the Great Inflation to the Great Recession: theory, institutions and empirics," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(3), pages 259-289, December.
    9. Weymark, Diana N., 2007. "Inflation, government transfers, and optimal central bank independence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 297-315, February.
    10. Guillermo Vuletin & Ling Zhu, 2011. "Replacing a “Disobedient” Central Bank Governor with a “Docile” One: A Novel Measure of Central Bank Independence and Its Effect on Inflation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(6), pages 1185-1215, September.
    11. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "Political economics and macroeconomic policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 22, pages 1397-1482, Elsevier.
    12. Andrew Hughes Hallett & Diana N. Weymark, 2005. "Independence Before Conservatism: Transparency, Politics and Central Bank Design," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 6(1), pages 1-21, February.
    13. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Eric Le Borgne, 2010. "A Political Agency Theory of Central Bank Independence," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(4), pages 647-677, June.
    14. Sousa, Pedro A. B. de, 2001. "Independent and Accountable Central Banks and the European Central Bank," European Integration online Papers (EIoP), European Community Studies Association Austria (ECSA-A), vol. 5, July.
    15. Alex Cukierman & Stefan Gerlach, 2003. "The inflation bias revisited: theory and some international evidence," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 71(5), pages 541-565, September.
    16. Chortareas, Georgios E & Miller, Stephen M, 2003. "Central Banker Contracts, Incomplete Information, and Monetary Policy Surprises: In Search of a Selfish Central Banker?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 116(3-4), pages 271-295, September.
    17. Jordahl, Henrik & Laseen, Stefan, 2005. "Central bank conservatism and labor market regulation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 345-363, June.
    18. Bernd Hayo & Carsten Hefeker, 2001. "Do We Really Need Central Bank Independence? A Critical Re- examination," Macroeconomics 0103006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Jeroen Klomp & Jakob De Haan, 2010. "Inflation And Central Bank Independence: A Meta‐Regression Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 593-621, September.
    20. Lippi, Francesco, 2000. "Median Voter Preferences, Central Bank Independence and Conservatism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 105(3-4), pages 323-338, December.

    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:gmf:journl:y:2004:i:20:p:22-38. 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: Sofia Antunes (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fecucpt.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.