IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwwuw/wuwp277.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Do Central Bankers Do? Evidence from the European Central Bank's Executive Board

Author

Listed:
  • Harald Badinger

    (Department of Economics, WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business), CESifo)

  • Volker Nitsch

    (Department of Law and Economics, Darmstadt University of Technology, CESifo)

Abstract

This paper examines how managers at the top of a public institution, central bank executives, allocate their working time. Using detailed information from personal diaries of the six members of the European Central Bank's Executive Board over a period of two years, we codify and analyze more than 3,700 reported activities and compare the results with recent findings on the time use of CEOs in the private sector. We report four additional observations. First, the daily schedule of central bankers is dominated by routine tasks; variations in economic uncertainty have, on average, no significant effect on the number of activities. Second, there are sizable differences in the scope of activities across board members. Third, the change in publication rules of diary entries from `on request' to `regular' was associated with a significant decline in reported activities. Fourth, nationality matters: Board members interact disproportionately often with fellow nationals.

Suggested Citation

  • Harald Badinger & Volker Nitsch, 2019. "What Do Central Bankers Do? Evidence from the European Central Bank's Executive Board," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp277, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp277
    Note: PDF Document
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://epub.wu.ac.at/6777/1/wp277.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antonio Fat¡S & Ilian Mihov & Andrew K. Rose, 2007. "Quantitative Goals for Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(5), pages 1163-1176, August.
    2. N. Nergiz Dincer & Barry Eichengreen, 2014. "Central Bank Transparency and Independence: Updates and New Measures," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 10(1), pages 189-259, March.
    3. Peter Conti-Brown, 2016. "The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10576.
    4. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher & Jakob De Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2008. "Central Bank Communication and Monetary Policy: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 910-945, December.
    5. Otmar Issing, 1999. "The Eurosystem: Transparent andAccountable or ‘Willem in Euroland’," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 503-519, September.
    6. Brown, Jeffrey R. & Huang, Jiekun, 2020. "All the president's friends: Political access and firm value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(2), pages 415-431.
    7. Badinger, Harald & Nitsch, Volker, 2014. "National representation in supranational institutions: The case of the European Central Bank," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 19-33.
    8. Goodfriend, Marvin, 1986. "Monetary mystique: Secrecy and central banking," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 63-92, January.
    9. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher & Jakob De Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2008. "Central Bank Communication and Monetary Policy: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 910-945, December.
    10. Lucas F. Husted & John H. Rogers & Bo Sun, 2016. "Measuring Cross Country Monetary Policy Uncertainty," IFDP Notes 2016-11-23, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    11. repec:pri:cepsud:161blinder is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Marianne Bertrand & Antoinette Schoar, 2003. "Managing with Style: The Effect of Managers on Firm Policies," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1169-1208.
    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. Andreas Dür & Christoph Moser & Gabriele Spilker, 2020. "The political economy of the European Union," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 561-572, July.

    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. Ngomba Bodi, Francis Ghislain & Tadadjeu Wemba, Dessy-Karl & Soulemanou, Soulemanou, 2020. "Transparence des Banques Centrales et efficacité de la politique monétaire : quelles implications pour la Banque des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale ? [Central Bank's Transparency and effectiveness of ," MPRA Paper 116436, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. van der Cruijsen, C.A.B., 2008. "The economic impact of central bank transparency," Other publications TiSEM 86c1ba91-1952-45b4-adac-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Trunin, Pavel (Трунин, Павел) & Bozhechkova, Alexandra (Божечкова, Александра) & Goryunov, Eugene (Горюнов, Евгений) & Petrova, Diana, 2017. "Analysis of Approaches to Accounting of the Information Effects of Monetary Policy [Анализ Подходов К Учету Информационных Эффектов Денежно-Кредитной Политики]," Working Papers 031723, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    4. Siklos, Pierre, 2017. "What Has Publishing Inflation Forecasts Accomplished? Central Banks And Their Competitors," LCERPA Working Papers 0098, Laurier Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis, revised 01 Apr 2017.
    5. Donato Masciandaro & Davide Romelli & Gaia Rubera, 2020. "Tweeting on Monetary Policy and Market Sentiments: The Central Bank Surprise Index," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 20134, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    6. Donato Masciandaro & Davide Romelli & Gaia Rubera, 2021. "Monetary policy and financial markets: evidence from Twitter traffic," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 21160, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    7. Miguel Acosta, 2015. "FOMC Responses to Calls for Transparency," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-60, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. Bernd Hayo & Florian Neumeier, 2018. "Central bank Independence in New Zealand: Public Knowledge About and Attitude Towards the Policy Target Agreement," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201829, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    9. Donato Masciandaro & Davide Romelli & Gaia Rubera, 2021. "Monetary policy, Twitter and financial markets: evidence from social media traffic," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 21160, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    10. Donato Masciandaro & Davide Romelli, 2019. "Behavioral Monetary Policymaking: Economics, Political Economy and Psychology," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Behavioral Finance The Coming of Age, chapter 9, pages 285-329, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    11. Hayo, Bernd & Neumeier, Florian, 2020. "Public knowledge about and attitudes towards central bank independence in New Zealand," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    12. Kia, Amir, 2017. "Monetary policy transparency in a forward-looking market: Evidence from the United States," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 597-617.
    13. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2020_017 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Bernd Hayo & Ummad Mazhar, 2014. "Monetary Policy Committee Transparency: Measurement, Determinants, and Economic Effects," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 739-770, September.
    15. Alina Evstigneeva & Mark Sidorovskiy, 2021. "Assessment of Clarity of Bank of Russia Monetary Policy Communication by Neural Network Approach," Russian Journal of Money and Finance, Bank of Russia, vol. 80(3), pages 3-33, September.
    16. Baranowski, Paweł & Doryń, Wirginia & Łyziak, Tomasz & Stanisławska, Ewa, 2021. "Words and deeds in managing expectations: Empirical evidence from an inflation targeting economy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 49-67.
    17. Jung, Alexander & El-Shagi, Makram, 2015. "Has the publication of minutes helped markets to predict the monetary policy decisions of the Bank of England's MPC?," Working Paper Series 1808, European Central Bank.
    18. 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.
    19. Pierre L. Siklos, 2016. "Forecast Disagreement and the Inflation Outlook: New International Evidence," IMES Discussion Paper Series 16-E-03, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    20. Alan S. Blinder, 2008. "Talking about Monetary Policy: The Virtues (and Vices?) of Central Bank Communication," Working Papers 1048, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    21. Jitmaneeroj, Boonlert & Lamla, Michael J. & Wood, Andrew, 2019. "The implications of central bank transparency for uncertainty and disagreement," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 222-240.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Governance; Management; Time Use;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E02 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Institutions and the Macroeconomy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration

    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:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp277. 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: Department of Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.wu.ac.at/economics/en .

    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.