Crafting Consensus : Why Central Bankers Change Their Speech and How Speech Changes the Economy Why Central Bankers Change Their Speech and How Speech Changes the Economy

Abstract

In the early 2000s, the US monetary policy committee, as well as other central banks around the world, began using “forward guidance,” or changes in their statement language, to signal policy changes. Underlying this shift toward clearer communication was the idea that more comprehensible monetary policy would lead to better economic performance and lower inflation. The first three chapters of this book argue that, rather than being a lofty goal set by altruistically motivated policy makers, transparency depends on the configuration of committee members’ preferences. Monetary policy committees that have central bankers with opposing preferences are argued to communicate more precisely compared to either a single decision maker or central bankers with more similar preferences. Precise communication is then shown to have positive effects by lowering inflation. Shifting focus and using data from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), chapter 4 presents evidence that committees with opposing preferences use a lower share of uncertainty words in policy statements and make more numerous changes to public announcements. Chapter 5 shows that households in Germany change their inflation expectations when given more precise central bank information. And chapter 6 shows that the level of precision in inflation-related news articles is negatively related to inflation in a sample of countries from Latin America. In conclusion, this book offers a new way of thinking about central bank committees and transparency. It finds that appointing a more policy-diverse central bank committee can encourage intercommittee governance and accountability as well as better economic performance.