The paper examines the optimal combination of central bank independence and conservatism in the presence of uncertain … bank's degree of inde-pendence and conservatism so as to minimise society's loss function. We find that the optimal … combination between independence and conservatism is not necessarily characterised by substitutability. When uncertainty about the …

We study how the optimal degree of conservatism relates to decision-making procedures in a Monetary Policy Committee … (MPC). In our framework, central bank conservatism is required to attenuate the volatility of monetary decisions generated … by the presence of uncertainty about the committee members’ output objective. We show how this need for conservatism …