To make reform possible, politically strong losers have to be bought out. Whether the losers are fully compensated upfront or given running compensation depends on their political influence after reform. We build a simple but general model to study dynamic consistency of compensation and...

Modern central banks do not only announce the interest rate decision, they also communicate a "story" that explains why they reached the particular decision. When decisions are made by a committee, it could be difficult to find a story that is both consistent with the decision and representative...

How do monetary policy committee (MPC) members form their views about the appropriate interest rate? To what extent do they change their minds during the deliberations in the interest rate meeting? How important is the Chairman? The theoretical literature makes assumptions about these issues. We...

This paper reports and analyzes the results from a questionnaire sent to all present and former members of the Riksbank’s Executive Board, the monetary policy committee (MPC) of the Swedish central bank. The questions cover a number of issues discussed in the growing literature on monetary...

The discursive dilemma implies that the policy decision of a board of policymakers depends on whether the board reaches the decision by voting directly on policy (conclusion-based procedure), or by voting on the premises for the decision (premise-based procedure). We derive results showing when...

The discursive dilemma implies that the policy decision of a board of policymakers depends on whether the board reaches the decision by voting directly on policy (conclusion-based procedure), or by voting on the premises for the decision (premise-based procedure). We derive results showing when...

We suggest that overconfidence among policymakers explains why formal decision power over monetary policy is given to committees, while much of the real power to set policy remains with central bank chairmen. Overconfidence implies that the chairman underweights advice from his staff, increasing...

Monetary policymakers face considerable uncertainty and have to use judgment. When the monetary policy committee (MPC) has to reach a decision based on different judgments among its members, various judgment aggregation problems may occur. Here, we consider an aggregation problem called the...

Most economic decisions involve judgments. When decisions are taken collectively, various judgment aggregation problems may occur. Here we consider an aggregation problem called the "discursive dilemma", which is characterized by an inconsistency between the aggregate judgment on the premises...

The typical judgment aggregation problem in economics and other fields is the following: A group of people has to judge (estimate) the value of an uncertain variable y which is a function of k other variables, i.e. y = D(x1,...xk) . We analyze when it is possible for the group to arrive at...