Volume 19, Issue 4 October 2023

Optimal Central Bank Forward Guidance

Abstract

When the future state of the economy is uncertain, yet a central bank has more information about the possible scenarios, how should the central bank communicate its private information to the public? This paper analyzes the optimal tone of central bank Delphic forward guidance using the Bayesian persuasion model (Kamenica and Gentzkow 2011). Assuming that monetary policy is an exogenously given function over the states of the economy and that the central bank is pre-committed to a forward-guidance policy function, under certain conditions, the optimal tone of communication about the uncertain future is overly pessimistic.

Authors

  • Eunmi Ko

JEL codes

  • D82
  • D83
  • E58

Other papers in this issue

Katharina Plessen-Mátyás and Christoph Kaufmann and Julian von Landesberger

André Teixeira and Zoë Venter

Thomas B. King and Travis D. Nesmith and Anna Paulson and Todd Prono

Md Jahir Uddin Palas and Fernando Moreira

Raphael Auer and Giulio Cornelli and Jon Frost

Frédérique Bec and Raouf Boucekkine and Caroline Jardet