In this paper we estimate ideal points of Bank Presidents and Board Governors at the FOMC. We use stated preferences from FOMC transcipts and estimate a hierarchical spatial voting model. We find a clear difference between the average Board Governor and Bank President. We find little evidence...

In this paper we estimate spatial voting models for the analysis of the voting record of the monetary policy committee of the Bank of England. We use a flexible Bayesian approach for estimating such models. A simple modification to the standard spatial model as well as a variety of model checks...

This paper analyzes the voting records of four central banks (Sweden, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic) with spatial models of voting. We infer the policy preferences of the monetary policy committee members and use these to analyze the evolution in preferences over time and the...

There is a small, but growing, economics literature on the importance and effects of having monetary policy made by a committee, rather than by an individual. Complimenting this is an older and larger body of literature on groups in the other social sciences, particular in social psychology....

Nowadays a considerable amount of information on the behaviour of the economy is readily available, in the form of large datasets of macroeconomic variables. Central bankers can be expected to base their decisions on this very large information set. Yet the academic profession has shown a clear...

Inflation targeting has become the monetary policy framework of the nineties. At the other extreme, several central banks have recently adopted key elements of the inflation targeter's toolkit, but at the same time they have made formal declarations that they are not inflation targeters. Such a...

This paper provides a policymaker's perspective on some lessons from the recent financial crisis. It focuses on questions in three areas. First, what lessons can be drawn regarding the institutional framework for monetary policy? Has the experience changed the pre-crisis consensus that monetary...

We study the interplay between competition and trust as efficiency-enhancing mechanims in the private provision of money. With commitment, trust is automatically achieved and competition ensures efficiency. Without commitment, competition plays no role. Trust does play a role but requires a...

This paper analyzes the macroeconomic consequences of the establishment of a monetary union in the presence of unionized labour markets. It is shown that the effects of the formation of a monetary union depend on several labour market features, such as the degree of centralization of wage...

The paper establishes the following: First, money is neutral even if there is a non-zero stock of non-monetary nominal public debt, because the government adjusts real taxes to satisfy its inter-temporal budget constraint. Second, Woodford’s fiscal theory of the price level, according to which...