از واقعی به شفافیت درک شده : مورد بانک مرکزی اروپا

Over the last decades central banks have become much more transparent about their monetary policy making process. In the literature, the increase in central bank transparency has frequently been related to (changes in) the actions of economic actors. However, the fact that these actors might not even be aware of the increased transparency or might not perceive the central bank as any more credible or transparent as a result of it is neglected in the literature. By analyzing data of a Dutch household survey on the (perceived) transparency of the European Central Bank (ECB) we delve into those neglected issues. We find that transparency perceptions matter for inflation perceptions and expectations as well as for trust in the ECB. However, we also show that the link between actual and perceived transparency is weak. Not only because of poor transparency knowledge but also because perceived transparency is influenced by many individual and psychological characteristics.

All around the world central banks have become more transparent (Dincer & Eichengreen, 2007). Transparency, which is defined as the degree to which a central bank provides information about its monetary policy making process (Geraats, 2002), is often presented as a tool that keeps central bankers accountable for their policy. Central bank transparency is also argued to have an effect on the effectiveness of monetary policy by steering market expectations that are relevant for the financial decisions of households and financial experts (Woodford, 2005). In addition, central bankers regard transparency as an important tool to build up credibility (Blinder, 2000), resulting in better anchored inflation expectations, relatively stable and better predictable long-term interest and inflation rates, and ultimately leading to more efficient investment and pricing decisions. One particularly striking finding of up-to-date overviews of the literature on the economic effects of central bank transparency (e.g. van der Cruijsen and Eijffinger, in press and Blinder et al., 2008) is that only few of the transparency studies take into account that economic actors might not be aware of the transparency practices of their central bank or might not perceive the central bank as any more transparent as a result of transparency increases. By neglecting these issues the (implicit) assumption is made that the central bank’s public fully and correctly perceives the transparency practices. However, research by de Haan, Eijffinger, and Waller (2005) shows that there are differences between the actual level of transparency of a central bank and its perceived degree of transparency. Because perceptions have a very large influence on behavior it seems fruitful to look into the causes and consequences of these transparency perceptions. We argue and show that there are two reasons why perceived transparency significantly deviates from the actual transparency practices. First, knowledge about the actual transparency efforts of central banks is imperfect. Second, both knowledge and perceptions of central bank transparency are driven by many individual and psychological factors. Subsequently, we show that these clearly imperfect transparency perceptions have an impact on people’s economic actions reflected in their inflation perceptions and expectations as well as in their level of trust in the central bank.1 The main contribution of our paper is that it provides more detailed and realistic insights into how central bank transparency, through people’s knowledge and perceptions of central bank transparency, influences several economic outcomes. As such, it enhances our understanding of how the economic effects of central bank transparency come about, which has implications for both research and practice. As Ranyard, Del Missier, Bonini, Duxbury, and Summers (2008) point out a better understanding of the formation of inflation perceptions and expectations is desirable. Our results provide insights into how central banks can increase the effectiveness of their monetary policy. We analyze whether simply becoming more transparent is sufficient to do so or whether other actions, such as having a clear communication policy to the general public, are required as well. Although our analysis is especially useful for the European Central Bank (ECB), the derived insights are very likely to be applicable – perhaps even more so as will be discussed later – to other central banks as well. To realize these contributions, we analyze micro-data on people’s knowledge and perceptions of the transparency of the ECB gathered through a questionnaire among the CentER-panel, which includes over 2000 Dutch households. With this data we test the above relations, which are further developed in Section 2.2 In Section 3 we discuss our data and survey methodology. Thereafter we present the outcomes of our empirical analyses: households’ knowledge about the transparency of the ECB (Section 4), transparency perceptions and their determinants (Section 5), and the importance of transparency perceptions for the effectiveness of the ECB’s monetary policy (Section 6). We end this paper with a discussion of the results and their relevance (Section 7).

We provide insight into central bank transparency perceptions, a topic barely touched upon by monetary economist and psychologists. We show how central bank transparency, through people’s knowledge and perceptions of transparency, affects economic outcomes. As such, it improves our understanding of how transparency affects the effectiveness of monetary policy and is thereby of use for both policymakers and for researchers working on the economic impact of central bank transparency. Based on a Dutch households’ survey we first show that knowledge about the transparency of the ECB is poor.19 Although our results indicate that economic experts suffer from imperfect transparency knowledge too, more research on this issue is needed. Secondly, we argue and show that perceptions of ECB transparency are driven by psychological processes and imperfect transparency knowledge. Transparency perceptions depend on transparency knowledge only to a small extent. Thirdly, we show that transparency perceptions matter for trust in the ECB, inflation perceptions and expectations and thereby for the effectiveness of monetary policy making. For central banks simply becoming more transparent is not sufficient. A clear communication strategy is important too. There is plenty of room for the ECB to create and increase transparency perceptions by improving knowledge on its disclosure practices. However, this will not be an easy task: psychological factors complicate the link between transparency knowledge and perceptions, the manner in which perceptions are being formed is likely to be different for different groups of people, and the public’s opinion is largely affected by the media, which is more difficult to steer than direct ECB communication. Although our analysis is focussed on the ECB, the insights derived are very likely to be applicable to other central banks.