Central Bank Design

Ricardo Reis

doi:10.3386/w19187

Central Bank Design

Ricardo Reis

Working Paper 19187

DOI 10.3386/w19187

Issue Date July 2013

What set of institutions can support the activity of a central bank? Designing a central bank requires specifying its objective function, including the bank's mandate at different horizons and the choice of banker(s), specifying the resource constraint that limits the resources that the central bank generates, the assets it holds, or the payments on its liabilities, and finally specifying how the central bank will communicate with private agents to affect the way they respond to policy choices. This paper summarizes the relevant economic literature that bears on these choices, leading to twelve principles on central bank design.

I am grateful to comments from Alan Blinder, Anil Kashyap, David Romer, and Mike Woodford. This paper was supported by the NBER and written for the conference "The First 100 Years of the Federal Reserve," which took place on July 10th, 2013. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Ricardo Reis
July 2013

Ricardo A. M. R. Reis

Outside Professional Activities, 2011-2013

Columbia University, CEPR, and NBER

Compensated Activities

Compensated teaching or advising at central banks or related organizations

Study Center, Gerzensee, Switzerland: lecturer, 2011.

Banco Central do Brasil: lecturer, 2011.

International Monetary Fund Institute: lecturer, 2011-13.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York: academic consultant and visiting scholar, 2011-13.

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis: academic consultant, 2013.

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond: academic consultant, 2013

Others sources of compensated activities

Journal of Monetary Economics: co-editor, 2011-13.

Cowles Foundation, Yale University: visitor and lecturer, 2011.

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity: panel member, 2011-13.

Russell Sage Foundation: visiting scholar, 2011-12.

Regular opinion column in Portuguese newspaper Dinheiro Vivo, 2011-13.

Financial support for research

INET grant to study “New-style central banking”, 2013-14.

NSF grant to study “Dynamic Measures of Inflation, 2009-12.

NBER grant to study “Central Bank Design”, 2013

Brookings Papers for Economic Activity support for articles published, 2011-13.

Non-compensated activities

Member of the euro-nomics group advocating for original solutions to the European crisis.

Member of SEDES blog, theportugueseeconomy.blogspot.com and of the advisory council of “Plataforma para o Crescimento Sustentável”, independent reflection groups / think tanks on the state and future of Portugal.

Member of ISEG Budget Watch, panel of independent experts evaluating the Portuguese government budget proposals.

Member of the Monetary Policy Advisory Panel, FRB New York.
MARC RIS BibTeΧ

Central Bank Design

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