Transparency in committee decision making may have clear benefits by making members more accountable to outside observers. We consider one potential cost: the possibility that publishing records of deliberations will make members more reluctant to offer dissenting opinions. We construct a model...

The authors develop and test several new hypotheses about the anti-inflationary effect of central bank independence and exchange rate pegs in the context of different institutions and different degrees of citizen information about government policies. Theory provides strong reason to believe...

The government's ability to credibly commit to policy announcements is critical to the successful implementation of economic policies as diverse as capital taxation and utilities regulation. One frequently advocated means of signaling credible commitment is to delegate authority to an agency...

Is central bank transparency associated with variation in macroeconomic outcomes? Cross-country data covering 87 countries is used to construct an index for transparency based upon the detail in central banks' published forecasts. After controlling for a number of other institutional and...

This paper examines to what extent the central bank for the West African Economic and Monetary Union (BCEAO) has used interest rate policy in response to domestic economic developments. We show that while in the long run the BCEAO matches changes in French (Eurozone) interest rates one for one,...

This paper analyses the effect of limits on fiscal deficits when fiscal policy outcomes depend on automatic stabilizers and when fiscal rules lack perfect credibility. The model developed, which includes interactions between monetary and fiscal policy, provides theoretical support for existing...

When central banks are transparent about their decision making, there may be clear benefits in terms ofcredibility, policy effectiveness, and improved democratic accountability. While recent literature has focusedon all of these advantages of transparency, in this paper we consider one potential...