Central banks around the world have a reputation for being secretive about their operations and market assessments. It is sometimes argued that central banks need flexibility and therefore cannot be fully transparent. We find that this explanation does not carry through in a forward-looking New...

Should central banks increase their degree of transparency any further? We show that there is likely to be an optimal intermediate degree of central bank transparency. Up to this optimum more transparency is desirable: it improves the quality of private sector inflation forecasts. But beyond the...

Central banks have become more and more transparent about their monetary policy making process. In the central bank transparency literature the distinction between actual and perceived central bank transparency is often lacking. However, as perceptions are crucial for the actions of economic...

Central Bankers are currently facing big challenges in designing and implementing monetary policy, as well as with safeguarding financial stability, with the world economy still in the process of digesting the legacy of the crisis. The crisis has changed central banking in many ways: by shifting...