IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecb/ecbwps/20101265.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How much does the public know about the ECB's monetary policy? Evidence from a survey of Dutch households

Author

Listed:
  • van der Cruijsen, Carin
  • Jansen, David-Jan
  • de Haan, Jakob

Abstract

Does the general public know what central banks do? Is this kind of knowledge relevant? Using a survey of Dutch households, we investigate these questions for the case of the European Central Bank (ECB). Our findings suggest that knowledge on the ECB’s objectives is far from perfect. Both a weak desire to be informed and unawareness of insufficient knowledge are barriers for improving the public's understanding of monetary policy. However, our results also show that more intensive use of information improves understanding, suggesting that the media channel may play an important and constructive role in building knowledge. Finally, we find that knowledge on monetary policy objectives contributes to an individual's ability to form realistic inflation expectations. JEL Classification: D12, D84, E52, E58

Suggested Citation

  • van der Cruijsen, Carin & Jansen, David-Jan & de Haan, Jakob, 2010. "How much does the public know about the ECB's monetary policy? Evidence from a survey of Dutch households," Working Paper Series 1265, European Central Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20101265
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp1265.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    2. Ehrmann, Michael & Tzamourani, Panagiota, 2012. "Memories of high inflation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 174-191.
    3. William A. Branch, 2004. "The Theory of Rationally Heterogeneous Expectations: Evidence from Survey Data on Inflation Expectations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 592-621, July.
    4. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769, November.
    5. Juster, F. Thomas, 1981. "An expectational view of consumer spending prospects," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 87-103, June.
    6. Helge Berger & Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher, 2011. "Monetary Policy in the Media," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(4), pages 689-709, June.
    7. David-Jan Jansen & Robert Mosch & Carin Cruijsen, 2015. "When Does the General Public Lose Trust in Banks?," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 48(2), pages 127-141, October.
    8. Papke, Leslie E & Wooldridge, Jeffrey M, 1996. "Econometric Methods for Fractional Response Variables with an Application to 401(K) Plan Participation Rates," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(6), pages 619-632, Nov.-Dec..
    9. Magee, L. & Robb, A. L. & Burbidge, J. B., 1998. "On the use of sampling weights when estimating regression models with survey data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 251-271, June.
    10. Neuenkirch, Matthias, 2012. "Managing financial market expectations: The role of central bank transparency and central bank communication," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 1-13.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Warto inwestować w wiedzę o polityce pieniężnej
      by kbien in Obserwator Finansowy on 2015-09-07 06:00:09

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Bernd Hayo & Florian Neumeier, 2018. "Households’ Inflation Perceptions and Expectations: Survey Evidence from New Zealand," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201805, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    2. Hayo, Bernd & Neuenkirch, Edith, 2014. "The German public and its trust in the ECB: The role of knowledge and information search," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 286-303.
    3. Jansen, David-Jan, 2011. "Mumbling with great incoherence: Was it really so difficult to understand Alan Greenspan?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 70-72, October.
    4. Łyziak, Tomasz & Paloviita, Maritta, 2017. "Anchoring of inflation expectations in the euro area: Recent evidence based on survey data," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 52-73.
    5. Levy, Daniel & Snir, Avichai, 2017. "Potterian Economics," MPRA Paper 76344, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Méon, Pierre-Guillaume & Minne, Geoffrey, 2014. "Mark my words: Information and the fear of declaring an exchange rate regime," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 244-261.
    7. Pierre-Guillaume Méon & Geoffrey Minne, 2014. "Mark my Words: Information and the Fear of Declaring one’s Exchange Rate Regime," Post-Print CEB, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 107, pages 244-261, March.
    8. Bernd Hayo & Florian Neumeier, 2017. "Explaining Central Bank Trust in an Inflation Targeting Country: The Case of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand," ifo Working Paper Series 236, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    9. Ehrmann, Michael & Soudan, Michel & Stracca, Livio, 2012. "Explaining EU Citizens' Trust in the ECB in Normal and Crisis Times," Economics Series 289, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    10. Hayat, Muhammad Azmat & Farvaque, Etienne, 2012. "Public attitudes towards central bank independence: Lessons from the foundation of the ECB," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 512-523.
    11. Federica Teppa & Corrie Vis, 2012. "The CentERpanel and the DNB Household Survey: Methodological Aspects," DNB Occasional Studies 1004, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    12. Petra Geraats, 2014. "Monetary Policy Transparency," CESifo Working Paper Series 4611, CESifo Group Munich.
    13. Mellina, Sathya & Schmidt, Tobias, 2018. "The role of central bank knowledge and trust for the public's inflation expectations," Discussion Papers 32/2018, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    14. repec:taf:rripxx:v:23:y:2016:i:6:p:1064-1092 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Siklos, Pierre L., 2017. "Central Banks into the Breach: From Triumph to Crisis and the Road Ahead," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190228835.
    16. Timo Henckel & Shaun Vahey & Liz Wakerly, 2011. "Probabilistic Interest Rate Setting With A Shadow Board: A Description Of The Pilot Project," CAMA Working Papers 2011-27, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    17. Bernd Hayo & Florian Neumeier, 2018. "Central Bank Independence in New Zealand: Public Knowledge About and Attitude Towards the Policy Target Agreement," ifo Working Paper Series 266, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    18. Jakob de Haan & Marco Hoeberichts & Renske Maas & Federica Teppa, 2016. "Inflation in the euro area and why it matters," DNB Occasional Studies 1403, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ECB; financial literacy; inflation expectations; knowledge; monetary policy; transparency;

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ecb:ecbwps:20101265. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Official Publications). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/emieude.html .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.