Central Bank Financial Strength, Transparency, and Policy Credibility

Peter Stella

No 2002/137, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: A central bank is financially strong if it possesses resources sufficient to attain its fundamental policy objective(s). Once endowed with those resources, relations between government and central bank should be designed so that significant changes in central bank financial strength do not occur unless necessitated by changes in policy objectives. The level of strength required depends on the array of policy objectives (for example, the exchange rate regime) as well as the constraints and risks presented by the operational environment. Attaining credibility is facilitated if the public can easily determine the financial strength of the bank, yet for a variety of reasons this is often difficult. Transparency requires institutional arrangements that ensure the central bank generates profit in most states of the world, is subject to strict ex post independent audit, and transfers regularly all profits, after provisions, to the treasury.

Keywords: WP; central bank loss; monetary policy; foreign exchange; rate of inflation; Central bank losses; transparency; credibility; policy objective; profit determination; policy capability; Financial statements; Inflation; International reserves; Central bank legislation; Australia and New Zealand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42
Date: 2002-08-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=15893 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2002/137

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().