Picking the Brains of MPC Members

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 policy making by committees. The paper thus relates research to the views of practitioners in a way that has not been done before. We find, among other things, that many members consider the six-person strong Riksbank MPC to be slightly too large, that it is very common that members have decided before the policy meeting how they will vote, and that members, when forming their opinions, consider input from the staff more important than input from their colleagues.