The Unemployment Effect of Central Bank Transparency

Most central banks around the world have increased their transparency in the recent past. The greater openness of central bankers manifests itself in the publication of the central banks’ own macroeconomic forecasts or the disclosure of minutes and voting records of central bank committees. The intention of this policy is to build credibility and achieve better economic outcomes. The question is whether higher transparency comes at some cost, i.e. higher unemployment or higher unemployment variability. Firstly, the article shows in a theoretical model that opaqueness regarding the central bank’s preferences does not necessarily lead to lower unemployment. Secondly, the paper analyses the main theoretical results of other authors, namely that transparency leads to higher wages, higher unemployment, and higher unemployment volatility. The results of the estimations show that there is no evidence that central bank transparency leads to higher wages. We can also reject the hypothesis that transparency induces higher unemployment. In fact, the analyses show that central bank transparency can reduce the detrimental effect that central bank independence has on employment. Furthermore, the estimations confirm that central bank transparency does not lead to higher unemployment volatility but can reduce it in most cases.