Are any surprises to be expected from a central bank?

March 25, 2002
Economic and statistical society, Basel

Summary

Monetary policy has become increasingly transparent around the world in recent years. Transparency helps the markets to better anticipate and understand the actions of a central bank. Surprises are thus generally ruled out.

There are several reasons in favour of transparency in monetary policy. First, transparency makes it possible to implement monetary policy more rapidly and more precisely, the reason for this being that monetary policy impacts mainly via the expectations of market participants. Transparency permits a central bank to influence these expectations more rapidly and more precisely in keeping with its own wishes. Furthermore, transparency makes it possible to avoid unnecessary market volatility and to increase the flexibility of the central bank.

Transparency is also a precondition for fulfilling reporting requirements. In a democracy, independence implies accountability, a condition that can only be fulfilled if facts become transparent. Transparency affords the best protection against attacks on a central bank's independence.

Download file now

The file can be downloaded with the button below.

Additional files

Related content

Author(s)

  • Jean-Pierre Roth
    Chairman of the Governing Board

Your settings

Required: These cookies (e.g. for storing your IP address) cannot be rejected as they are necessary to ensure the operation of the website. These data are not evaluated further.
Analytics: If you consent to this category, data such as IP address, location, device information, browser version and site visitor behaviour will be collected. These data are evaluated for the SNB's internal purposes and are kept for two years.
Third-party: If you consent to this category, third-party services (used, for example, to add social multimedia content to the SNB's website) will be activated which collect personal data, process these data, disclose them abroad - worldwide - and place cookies. The relevant data protection regulations are linked in the 'Privacy statement for the website of the Swiss National Bank'.

Choose your preferred settings:

This website uses cookies, analytics tools and other technologies to provide requested features, content and services, to personalise the content shown, to provide links to social media, and to analyse the use of the website in anonymised form for the purposes of improving usability. Personal data are also disclosed abroad - worldwide - to video service providers and the analytics tools of these providers are used. More information is available under 'Manage settings'.