Voting Transparency in a Monetary Union

Hans Gersbach and Volker Hahn

No 5155, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We examine whether the central bank council of a monetary union should publish its voting records when members are appointed by national politicians. We show that the publication of voting records lowers overall welfare if the private benefits of holding office are sufficiently low. High private benefits of central bankers lower overall welfare under opacity, as they induce European central bankers to care more about being re-appointed than about beneficial policy outcomes. We show that opacity and low private benefits jointly guarantee the optimal welfare level. Moreover, we suggest that non-renewable terms for national central bankers and delegating the appointment of all council members to a European agency would be desirable.

Keywords: Central banks; Transparency voting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 E58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-fmk, nep-mac, nep-mon, nep-pol and nep-sea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Voting Transparency in a Monetary Union (2009)
Journal Article: Voting Transparency in a Monetary Union (2009)
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