شفافیت سیاست بانک مرکزی اروپا: آنچه که ما می توانیم از مداخله در بازار ارز خارجی بانک مرکزی اروپا یاد بگیریم؟

In the fall of 2000, the European Central Bank (ECB) conducted several foreign exchange market interventions in order to reverse the depreciation trend of the euro. In this paper, we compare the actual information and communication policy of the ECB with the transparency requirements of major approaches explaining how interventions can affect the exchange rate. The analysis points to several inconsistencies which can be interpreted as reasons for the relative ineffectiveness of the ECB interventions.

In this paper, we compare the actual information and communication policy of the ECB with the transparency requirements of the main theoretical approaches that explain how sterilized interventions can affect the exchange rate. Specifically, we examine the signaling approach, the portfolio approach, and the noise trader approach as models that the ECB might have had in mind when it used foreign exchange market interventions in order to break the depreciation trend of the euro. Because these models highlight different channels through which intervention activities can influence the exchange rate, they have very different implications as regards the degree of monetary policy transparency. However, our results point to considerable differences between the way the ECB conducted its information and communication policy vis-à-vis the public and what any of the three theoretical approaches would have required. These differences could be interpreted as a reason for why the empirical literature found the interventions of the ECB to be relatively ineffective. There are three possible explanations for why the information and communication policy of the ECB was not in line with the requirements of any of the three major models discussed in this paper. The first explanation is that the ECB possibly had a different model in mind of how its interventions can affect the euro exchange rate and its information and communication policy was in line with this model. In this case, the ECB would have applied a model that is not well known or not yet published in the academic literature. Perhaps the ECB had in mind a model belonging to the time-inconsistency literature of monetary policy and believed that a clearer information and communication policy would not yield additional gains in terms of the effectiveness of its interventions. In any of these cases, however, the question arises as to why the interventions were relatively ineffective. Was the model of the ECB wrong after all? The second explanation is that the ECB had no consistent model in mind but was under pressure to do something given the sharp depreciation of the euro. The ECB may have just hoped to exert some positive effect on the euro by creating uncertainty in the foreign exchange market, although it had no clear view of how this could eventually affect the exchange rate. Conflicting statements of the same ECB representatives could be interpreted as supporting this explanation. Finally, the third explanation could be that EMU involves many parties with different views and that the way the ECB communicates with the public had not yet been practiced enough. This view is supported by the fact it was frequently felt in financial markets and political circles that, too many officials commented on the interventions.