OPTIMThe conservative central banker has come under attack recently. Explicitly modeling the interaction of a trade union with monetary policy, it has been argued that the standard solution to the inflationary bias in monetary policy might actually be welfare reducing if the trade union has an...

There has been a remarkable rise in the transparency of monetary policy during the last two decades. This paper provides an overview of the ways in which central banks have been providing more information about their monetary policymaking. Furthermore, it reviews the theoretical literature on...

The pending enlargement of the European Monetary Union (EMU) has brought to the fore the discussion of the voting right distribution in the European Central Bank (ECB) council. We show that, in a model where labor unions internalize the inflationary consequences of wage setting, deviating from a...

Transparency has become a prominent feature of monetary policy. This paper provides an overview of central bank communication practices and is the first to systematically analyze transparency trends throughout the world and across monetary policy frameworks. It shows that increases in...

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...

Transparency has become one of the main features of monetary policymaking during the last decade. This paper establishes some stylized facts. In addition, it provides a systematic overview of the practice of monetary policy transparency around the world. It shows much diversity in information...