IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/38424.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A simple empirical measure of central banks' conservatism

Author

Listed:
  • Levieuge, Grégory
  • Lucotte, Yannick

Abstract

In this paper we suggest a simple empirical and model-independent measure of Central Banks' Conservatism, based on the Taylor curve. This new indicator can easily be extended in time and space, whatever the underlying monetary regime of the considered countries. We demonstrate that it evolves in accordance with the monetary experiences of 32 OECD member countries from 1980, and is largely equivalent to the model-based measure provided by Krause & Méndez [Southern Economic Journal, 2005]. We finally bring forward the interest of such an indicator for further empirical analysis dealing with the preferences of Central Banks.

Suggested Citation

  • Levieuge, Grégory & Lucotte, Yannick, 2012. "A simple empirical measure of central banks' conservatism," MPRA Paper 38424, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:38424
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/38424/1/MPRA_paper_38424.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth Rogoff, 1985. "The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1169-1189.
    2. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Quah, Danny, 1989. "The Dynamic Effects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 655-673, September.
    3. Arjun Jayadev, 2008. "The class content of preferences towards anti-inflation and anti-unemployment policies," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 161-172.
    4. Helge Berger & Jakob De Haan & Sylvester C.W. Eijffinger, 2001. "Central Bank Independence: An Update of Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(1), pages 3-40, February.
    5. Krause, Stefan & Méndez, Fabio, 2008. "Institutions, arrangements and preferences for inflation stability: Evidence and lessons from a panel data analysis," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 282-307, March.
    6. Stephen G. Cecchetti & Michael Ehrmann, 2002. "Does Inflation Targeting Increase Output Volatility?: An International Comparison of Policymakers' Preferences and Outcomes," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series (ed.),Monetary Policy: Rules and Transmission Mechanisms, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 9, pages 247-274, Central Bank of Chile.
    7. Marcello D'Amato & Barbara Pistoresi & Francesco Salsano, 2009. "On the determinants of Central Bank independence in open economies," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(2), pages 107-119.
    8. Eijffinger, Sylvester C.W. & Hoeberichts, Macro M., 2008. "The trade-off between central bank independence and conservatism in a New Keynesian framework," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 742-747, December.
    9. Eijffinger, Sylvester C W & Hoeberichts, Marco, 1998. "The Trade off between Central Bank Independence and Conservativeness," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(3), pages 397-411, July.
    10. Clarida, Richard & Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1998. "Monetary policy rules in practice Some international evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 1033-1067, June.
    11. Tachibana, Minoru, 2004. "Central Banks' preferences in Japan, the UK, and the US," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 81-93, January.
    12. Éric Jondeau & Hervé Le Bihan, 2002. "Evaluating Monetary Policy Rules in Estimated Forward-Looking Models: A Comparison of US and German Monetary Policies," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 67-68, pages 357-388.
    13. Assenmacher-Wesche, Katrin, 2006. "Estimating Central Banks' preferences from a time-varying empirical reaction function," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(8), pages 1951-1974, November.
    14. Taylor, John B, 1979. "Estimation and Control of a Macroeconomic Model with Rational Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1267-1286, September.
    15. Stefan Krause & Fabio Méndez, 2005. "Policy Makers' Preferences, Party Ideology, and the Political Business Cycle," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 71(4), pages 752-767, April.
    16. Hallett Andrew Hughes & Weymark Diana N., 2005. "Independence Before Conservatism: Transparency, Politics and Central Bank Design," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-21, February.
    17. Laurence Ball, 1999. "Efficient Rules for Monetary Policy," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(1), pages 63-83, April.
    18. Favero, Carlo A & Rovelli, Riccardo, 2003. "Macroeconomic Stability and the Preferences of the Fed: A Formal Analysis, 1961-98," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 35(4), pages 545-556, August.
    19. Farvaque, Etienne, 2002. "Political determinants of central bank independence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 131-135, September.
    20. Svensson, Lars E. O., 2000. "Open-economy inflation targeting," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 155-183, February.
    21. repec:bla:ecnote:v:32:y:2003:i:3:p:335-359 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. King Banaian & Bryan Roberts (ed.), 2008. "The Design and Use of Political Economy Indicators," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-61662-2, December.
    23. Etienne Farvaque & Alexander Mihailov, 2008. "Intergenerational Transmission of Inflation Aversion: Theory and Evidence," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2008-71, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    24. King Banaian, 2008. "Measuring Central Bank Independence: Ordering, Ranking, or Scoring?," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: King Banaian & Bryan Roberts (ed.), The Design and Use of Political Economy Indicators, chapter 0, pages 33-55, Palgrave Macmillan.
    25. Francesco Lippi, 1999. "Central Bank Independence, Targets and Credibility," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1615.
    26. Richard Dennis, 2006. "The policy preferences of the US Federal Reserve," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(1), pages 55-77.
    27. Eijffinger, S. & De Hann, J., 1995. "The Political Economy of Central Bank Independence," Papers 9587, Tilburg - Center for Economic Research.
    28. Salemi, Michael K, 1995. "Revealed Preference of the Federal Reserve: Using Inverse-Control Theory to Interpret the Policy Equation of a Vector Autoregression," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(4), pages 419-433, October.
    29. Jeroen Klomp & Jakob De Haan, 2010. "Inflation And Central Bank Independence: A Meta‐Regression Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 593-621, September.
    30. Ozlale, Umit, 2003. "Price stability vs. output stability: tales of federal reserve administrations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(9), pages 1595-1610, July.
    31. King, Mervyn, 1997. "Changes in UK monetary policy: Rules and discretion in practice," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 81-97, June.
    32. Jeroen Klomp & Jakob Haan, 2010. "Central bank independence and inflation revisited," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 144(3), pages 445-457, September.
    33. Christopher Crowe & Ellen E. Meade, 2007. "The Evolution of Central Bank Governance around the World," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(4), pages 69-90, Fall.
    34. Jayadev, Arjun, 2006. "Differing preferences between anti-inflation and anti-unemployment policy among the rich and the poor," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 67-71, April.
    35. Diana N. Weymark, 2005. "Inflation, Government Transfers, and Optimal Central Bank Independence," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0502, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    36. Ben S. Bernanke & Frederic S. Mishkin, 1997. "Inflation Targeting: A New Framework for Monetary Policy?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 97-116, Spring.
    37. Eric Olson & Walter Enders, 2012. "A Historical Analysis of the Taylor Curve," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(7), pages 1285-1299, October.
    38. Gabriel Sterne, 2002. "Inflation Targets in a Global Context," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Editor) (ed.),Inflation Targeting: Desing, Performance, Challenges, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 2, pages 023-078, Central Bank of Chile.
    39. Efrem Castelnuovo & Paolo Surico, 2004. "Model Uncertainty, Optimal Monetary Policy and the Preferences of the Fed," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 51(1), pages 105-126, February.
    40. Siklos,Pierre L., 2006. "The Changing Face of Central Banking," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521034494, October.
    41. Weymark, Diana N., 2007. "Inflation, government transfers, and optimal central bank independence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 297-315, February.
    42. repec:adr:anecst:y:2002:i:67-68:p:13 is not listed on IDEAS
    43. Libich Jan, 2011. "Inflation Nutters? Modelling the Flexibility of Inflation Targeting," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-36, June.
    44. Cover, James Peery & Enders, Walter & Hueng, C. James, 2006. "Using the Aggregate Demand-Aggregate Supply Model to Identify Structural Demand-Side and Supply-Side Shocks: Results Using a Bivariate VAR," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(3), pages 777-790, April.
    45. Mojon, Benoît & Peersman, Gert, 2001. "A VAR description of the effects of monetary policy in the individual countries of the euro area," Working Paper Series 92, European Central Bank.
    46. Hayo, Bernd & Hefeker, Carsten, 2002. "Reconsidering central bank independence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 653-674, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jean-Bernard Chatelain & Kirsten Ralf, 2017. "Can We Identify the Fed's Preferences?," Working Papers halshs-01549908, HAL.
    2. de Haan, J. & Eijffinger, Sylvester, 2016. "The Politics of Central Bank Independence," Discussion Paper 2016-047, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    3. Vasco J. Gabriel & Ioannis Lazopoulos & Diana Lima, 2023. "Institutional Arrangements and Inflation Bias: A Dynamic Heterogeneous Panel Approach," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(1), pages 43-76, February.
    4. Levieuge, Grégory & Lucotte, Yannick & Pradines-Jobet, Florian, 2021. "The cost of banking crises: Does the policy framework matter?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Grégory LEVIEUGE & Yannick LUCOTTE, 2012. "A Simple Empirical Measure of Central Bank' Conservatism," LEO Working Papers / DR LEO 2258, Orleans Economics Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orleans (LEO), University of Orleans.
    2. D. Masciandaro, 2019. "What Bird Is That? Central Banking And Monetary Policy In The Last Forty Years," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 19127, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    3. Diouf, Ibrahima & Pépin, Dominique, 2017. "Gender and central banking," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 193-206.
    4. Masciandaro, Donato, 2022. "Independence, conservatism, and beyond: Monetary policy, central bank governance and central banker preferences (1981–2021)," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    5. C Katseli & A Theofilakou & K Zekente, 2020. "Central Bank Independence and Inflation Preferences: New Empirical Evidence on the Effects of Inflation," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 25(1), pages 1-29, March.
    6. Diouf, Ibrahima & Pépin, Dominique, 2017. "Gender and central banking," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 193-206.
    7. Masciandaro, Donato & Romelli, Davide, 2015. "Ups and downs of central bank independence from the Great Inflation to the Great Recession: theory, institutions and empirics," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(3), pages 259-289, December.
    8. Donato Masciandaro & Davide Romelli, 2018. "To Be or not to Be a Euro Country? The Behavioural Political Economics of Currency Unions," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1883, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    9. Donato Masciandaro, 2021. "Central Bank Governance in Monetary Policy Economics (1981-2020)," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 21153, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    10. Cabrera, Nilda & Bejarano, Edilean & Savino Portugal, Marcelo, 2011. "Preferences of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru and optimal monetary policy rules in the inflation targeting regime," Working Papers 2011-010, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú.
    11. Sánchez, Marcelo, 2010. "What does South Korean inflation targeting target?," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 526-539, December.
    12. Hielscher, Kai & Markwardt, Gunther, 2012. "The role of political institutions for the effectiveness of central bank independence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 286-301.
    13. Manfred Gärtner, 2008. "The Political Economy of Monetary Policy Conduct and Central Bank Design," Springer Books, in: Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy, chapter 24, pages 423-446, Springer.
    14. Castelnuovo Efrem, 2006. "The Fed's Preference for Policy Rate Smoothing: Overestimation Due to Misspecification?," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-22, August.
    15. Afees A. Salisu & Elias A. Udeaja & Silva Opuala-Charles, 2022. "Central Bank Independence And Price Stability Under Alternative Political Regimes: A Global Evidence," Bulletin of Monetary Economics and Banking, Bank Indonesia, vol. 25(2), pages 155-172, August.
    16. Philipp F. M. Baumann & Enzo Rossi & Alexander Volkmann, 2020. "What Drives Inflation and How: Evidence from Additive Mixed Models Selected by cAIC," Papers 2006.06274, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    17. Aragón, Edilean Kleber da Silva Bejarano & Portugal, Marcelo Savino, 2009. "Central Bank preferences and monetary rules under the inflation targeting regime in Brasil," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 29(1), May.
    18. de Haan, J. & Eijffinger, Sylvester, 2016. "The Politics of Central Bank Independence," Discussion Paper 2016-047, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    19. Mark Mietzner & Dirk Schiereck, 2011. "Staatsfonds als Ankerinvestoren: Eine Note zum Einstieg von Aabar bei Daimler," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(1), pages 92-100, February.
    20. Edilean Kleber da Silva & Marcelo Savino Portugal, 2010. "Central Bank Preferences And Monetary Rules Under The Inflation Targeting Regime In Brazil," Working Papers 07-2010, Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade de Ribeirão Preto.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Central Banks' preferences; Conservatism; Taylor curve; Taylor rule;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E47 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:38424. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.