Title: Central bank communication and transparency: the ECB and the European Parliament

Authors: Ansgar Belke

Addresses: University of Duisburg-Essen Essen, Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels & Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn, Universitaetsstraße 12, D-45117 Essen, Germany

Abstract: This paper considers a range of important issues concerning the transparency and accountability of central banks with particular emphasis on the so-called monetary Dialogue, i.e., the regular appearances of the President of the European Central Bank (ECB) before the European Parliament (EP). In order to highlight the key issues of central bank communication and the management of expectations referring to a practical institutional example, we comment on the role the Monetary Dialogue in the context of an evolving monetary policy. Communication is finally described as a policy option in terms of minimising risk in the context of exit from unconventional monetary policies and of the signalling channel which refers to what the public learns from announcements of unconventional monetary policy operations such as Quantitative Easing.

Keywords: central bank communication; European central bank; European Parliament; forward guidance; monetary dialogue; transparency.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMEF.2018.095770

International Journal of Monetary Economics and Finance, 2018 Vol.11 No.5, pp.416 - 435

Received: 03 Oct 2016
Accepted: 25 Apr 2017
Published online: 22 Oct 2018 *

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