This paper studies monetary policy committee transparency (MPCT) based on a new index that measures central bankers' educational and professional backgrounds as disclosed through central bank websites. Based on a novel cross-sectional data set covering 75 central banks, we investigate the...

The emergence of the New Consensus in monetary policy has been followed by a renewal of interest in central banks' operating procedures, and specifically in the role of open market operations. There is a general view that overnight interest rates are most effectively controlled by standing or...

Die Europäische Zentralbank hat seit 2007 zahlreiche unkonventionelle geldpolitische Maßnahmen umgesetzt. Jedes neue Instrument wurde von einer heftigen öffentlichen Debatte über seine Wirksamkeit begleitet. Diese Studie evaluiert die makroökonomischen Effekte dieser Maßnahmen. Die...

We develop a comprehensive index of the transparency of central banks regarding their policy framework to promote financial stability for 110 countries from 2000 to 2011 and examine the determinants and effects of this transparency. We find that the degree of transparency increased in the 2000s,...

We study the macroeconomic effects of unconventional monetary policy in the euro area using structural vector autoregressions, identified with an external instrument. The instrument is the common unexpected variation in euro area sovereign spreads for different maturities on policy announcement...

Many countries have undertaken central-bank independence reforms, but the years of implementation differ. What explains such differences in timing? This is of interest more broadly, as it sheds light on factors that matter for the speed at which economic reforms come about. We study a rich set...

This paper deals with the neglected issue of central banks' social responsibility. Since central banks exert the "structural power" on economies as well as on societies, their power should be regulated and controlled by society through a reliable framework of social responsibility. To that aim,...

The inability of central banks to attain their target inflation rates in recent years has raised questions about the extent to which central banks can control the inflation process. This paper discusses the evolution of thought and evidence since the 1960s on the determinants of inflation and...

This paper sheds light on an overlooked issue in economics, namely the social responsibility of central banks in a democracy. We consider central banks as institutions of power, and, as such, neither are they nor their policies neutral, in the sense that there are inevitable winners and losers....

In this study, we provide a systemic perspective on central bank digital currencies (CBDC). We separate existing proposals for CBDCs into the perspective of new payment objects, made available by central banks to a broader public, and new payment systems, operated by central banks. From a...