Volume 12, Issue 1 March 2016

What determines the credibility of the Central Bank of Israel in the public eye?

Abstract

In line with the rational expectations approach, economists emphasize transparency as a key factor for central banks' credibility. In this paper, a psychological approach yields different results: trust in the banks' policy is associated with the professionalism and independence of the bank and not with its transparency. It is a subtle difference: transparency is indeed a positive factor in the overall perception of the bank as trustworthy, but a statistical analysis shows that not all aspects of perception are relevant to trust in the bank's credibility in its inflationary policy.

Authors

  • Zeev Kril
  • David Leiser
  • Avia Spivak

JEL codes

  • E58