Monetary Policy Committees and Interest Rate Smoothing

Carlos Montoro

CEP Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: We extend the New Keynesian Monetary Policy literature relaxing the assumption that the decisions are taken by a single policymaker, considering instead that monetary policy decisions are taken collectively in a committee. We introduce a Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), whose members have different preferences between output and inflation variability and have to vote on the level of the interest rate. This paper helps to explain interest rate smoothing from a political economy point of view, in which MPC members face a bargaining problem on the level of the interest rate. In this framework, the interest rate is a non-linear reaction function on the lagged interest rate and the expected inflation. This result comes from a political equilibrium in which there is a strategic behaviour of the agenda setter with respect to the rest of the MPC's members. Our approach can also reproduce both features documented by the empirical evidence on interest rate smoothing: a) the modest response of the interest rate to inflation and output gap; and b) the dependence on lagged interest rate; features that are difficult to reproduce in standard New Keynesian models all together. It also provides a theoretical framework on how disagreement among policymakers can slow down the adjustment on interest rates and on "menu costs" in interest rate decisions. Furthermore, a numerical exercise shows that this inertial behaviour of the interest rate is internalised by the economic agents through an increase in expected inflation.

Keywords: Monetary Policy Committee; interest rate smoothing; New Keynesian Economics; political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 E43 E52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-mac and nep-mon
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Working Paper: Monetary policy committees and interest rate smoothing (2007)
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