IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/58072.html

Transparency and deliberation within the FOMC: a computational linguistics approach

Author

Listed:
  • Hansen, Stephen
  • McMahon, Michael
  • Prat, Andrea

Abstract

How does transparency, a key feature of central bank design, affect the deliberation of monetary policymakers? We exploit a natural experiment in the Federal Open Market Committee in 1993 together with computational linguistic models (particularly Latent Dirichlet Allocation) to measure the effect of increased transparency on debate. Commentators have hypothesized both a beneficial discipline effect and a detrimental conformity effect. A difference-in-differences approach inspired by the career concerns literature uncovers evidence for both effects. However, the net effect of increased transparency appears to be a more informative deliberation process.

Suggested Citation

  • Hansen, Stephen & McMahon, Michael & Prat, Andrea, 2014. "Transparency and deliberation within the FOMC: a computational linguistics approach," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 58072, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:58072
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/58072/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • 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:ehl:lserod:58072. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.