The thesis focuses on central bank independence (CBI) in 20 selected African countries over 1990-2008. Firstly, we measure the degree of CBI. Secondly, we measure the effects of CBI on macroeconomic performance. Thirdly, we measure the effects of fiscal dominance (FD) on CBI and macroeconomic performance. The thesis has 5 chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 are stand-alone related papers on CBI and macroeconomic performance. Chapter 5 is the conclusion. Chapter 1 introduces the study. We give a brief background of the study, its motivation, the main objectives and the hypotheses to be tested. We describe the innovations that we make to CBI measurement, effects of CBI on macroeconomic performance, and the effects of FD on CBI and macroeconomic performance. We highlight the key findings and notable limitations of the study. Finally, we conclude with a brief outline of the rest of the chapters namely 2, 3, 4 and 5. Chapter 2 measures CBI. We develop a comprehensive set of CBI indices. We follow the methodologies developed by Grilli et al. (1991) and Cukierman et al. (1992). Firstly, we measure CBI in legal (de jure) and in factual (de facto) terms. Secondly, we measure CBI in political terms and in economic terms. We measure factual CBI by the annual average turnover rate (TOR) of central bank (CB) governors. We use central bank Acts and their amendments as well as country constitutions (where applicable) to calculate the legal CBI indices. The results suggest that legal CBI is low but factual CBI is high. Political CBI is low but economic CBI is high. In overall terms, both legal and factual CBI have improved from their late 1980 levels. The levels of legal CBI over 1990-2008 are slightly above what characterized developed countries in the late 1980s. Factual CBI has improved significantly in most African countries, but it still varies considerably across the countries. The variations seem to reflect different political, economic and legal conditions. The results suggest that legal CBI still deviates considerably from actual CB practices in Africa. Factual CBI seems to proxy actual CBI better than legal CBI. However, to some extent, factual CBI seems to reflect subservience of some CB governors in Africa. We conclude that African governments still need to grant their CBs, more CBI in line with modern-day CBs, world-wide. Specifically, they need to consider constitutionalizing CBI, so that it is not easily violated by some political authorities.

Thesis--Paris. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [vii]-viii).

Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Technology: Public Relations Management in the Faculty of Informatics and Design at the Cape Peninsula Univesity of Technology / The aim of this research is to establish the gaps between the potential role of the public relations practitioner within the CMA central bank context, and management’s perception and expectation of that role. The study may then improve the overall status of public relations in central banking. The research focuses specifically on the role of public relations practitioners of central banks belonging to the CMA of Southern Africa. The research question is: what are top managements’ perceptions and expectations of the public relations practitioner’s role in CMA central banks, and how does this differ from the potential role public relations practitioners can play within this context? An empirical study was conducted in order to achieve the aim and meet the objectives of this research study. Elements of both the positivist and anti-positivist paradigms are evident in this research study. The research approach is, therefore, both quantitative and qualitative of nature. The research design is an instrumental and intrinsic case study, which used methodological triangulation. The study population consisted of the dominant coalition (top management) of the central banks. Management committees at the central banks provided a sampling frame for the study. Due to the small size of the population a census was taken instead of a sample. Fourteen self-administered questionnaires were returned, but the response rate was too low to draw any solid conclusions from the data. In order to overcome this obstacle, one-on-one in-depth interviews were conducted with the fourteen respondents who returned their questionnaires. According to the majority of interviewees, the strategic role of public relations practitioners is the ideal role. The interviewees emphasised that the most senior public relations practitioner plays an essential role in acting as the CMA central banks’ media liaison person. This entails being the spokesperson of the bank, writing and disseminating information to the media, ensuring the media complies with central bank protocols, as well as coordinating and responding to media enquiries on a daily basis. The data suggests that, currently, public relations practitioners spend most of their time dealing with the media. It is a concern, though, that many of the interviewees could not describe the current ‘satisfactory performance’ or behaviours of most senior public relations practitioners. Many answered: “I don’t know”. The interviewees further commented that the public relations position lacks status and authority at the central banks. However, indications are that this situation is slowly improving with positions gaining increased status. Despite limitations, the majority agreed that corporate communication is extremely important to central banks in the light of continuously building and maintaining public confidence. The data further suggested that public relations practitioners may increasingly find that the value of their position rests in advising and serving on the Boards of central banks in the future. According to the literature review, there are mainly three public relations roles: strategist, manager and technician. All three of these roles should be enacted depending on the environment within which the public relations practitioner operates. Ideally, the public relations practitioner should enact these roles with a strategist mindset. Top management of the CMA central banks expect that senior public relations practitioners enact a strategist role, but currently this is lacking. The study further suggests that top management found it challenging to describe the current roles that practitioners are executing within CMA central banks. Many of the interviewees had difficulty answering questions about the current behaviours and performances of practitioners. The expectations of top management for practitioners to enact a strategist role are contradictory to what they further revealed in the interviews. This is because the dominant coalition’s key expectation is for public relations practitioners to mainly deal with the media by disseminating information, but also to influence media reports positively. The research may suggest that top management equates the strategist role as that of a media liaison person. The data further suggests that CMA central banks may be following the press / media agentry or public information public relations models, which are one-way models. This is in conflict with the strategist role, which is mostly evident in organisations following the two-way public relations models. Overall, this study emphasised the lack of research regarding corporate communication / public relations within the central banking context. It is therefore recommended that further research be conducted about the comprehensive role that public relations practitioners can play in central banks.

In this dissertation, I study the legitimacy of the Federal Reserve System. Administrative legitimacy, I argue, is an evaluative (or subjective) concept consisting of two beliefs: first, administrative institutions have a right to govern; second, they are an appropriate way to handle public tasks. After discussing scholarship on legitimacy, I examine the Federal Reserve System, asking two questions about it. First, how have its officials attempted to legitimate both their institution and their actions over time? Second, how have elected officials, scholars, and political activists attempted to (de)legitimate the Fed and its officials' actions? While answering my research questions, I tell a story about which strategies the institution's supporters have used to legitimate the Fed and which strategies the institution's opponents have used to delegitimate it. To do so, I examine two things: the public argument about the Fed's administrative legitimacy from 1970 to 1995; the Fed's interactions with its environment, those with direct implications for its legitimacy, during this time. / Ph. D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Cornell University, 2008. / Adviser: Walter Mebane. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1957. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [i]-xiii).

There is a traditional view that central banks should hold enough gold in their reserves to be considered financially secure and keep low inflation. However, after the fall of the Bretton-Woods system, many central banks have been decreasing its gold reserves by converting gold into other assets and still they do not experience high inflation. This thesis aims to answer the question if gold reserves of central banks indeed positively affect price stability. We use the panel data for 110 countries for the period from 2000 to 2016. We find that there is a significant negative effect of central banks' gold reserves on inflation but only if we control the proxy variables for the financial strength of central banks. Furthermore, the significance holds only for the inflation-targeting countries, there are no significant effects for the whole data sample. JEL Classification: E31, E52, E58, F41, G11, G21 Keywords: Gold reserves, Central Banks, Inflation rate, Price Stability Author's e-mail: 73099909@fsv.cuni.cz Supervisor's e-mail: tomas.havranek@fsv.cuni.cz

The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the impact of important market participants such as Mutual Funds, Hedge Funds and the Federal Reserve Bank on the equilibrium equity premium, risk free rate and asset volatility and to analyze the effect of these institutions on risk shifting, portfolio allocation and financial stability. Specific features of institutional investors and central banks as well as their role in financial markets are reviewed and analyzed in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, it is shown that the competitive pressure to beat a benchmark may induce institutional trading behavior that exposes retail investors to tail risk. In our model, institutional investors are different from a retail investor because they derive higher utility when they outperform the benchmark. This forces institutions to take on leverage to over-invest in the benchmark. Institutions execute fire sales when the benchmark asset experiences negative shocks. This behavior increases market volatility, raising the tail risk exposure of the retail investor. Nevertheless, ex-post, tail risk is only short lived, all investors survive in the long run under standard conditions, and the most patient investor dominates in the sense that she has the highest consumption wealth ratio. Ex-ante, however, benchmarking is welfare reducing for the retail investor, and beneficial only to the impatient institutional investor. Chapter 3 presents an analysis on how monetary authorities seeking to stabilize inflation, output and smooth interest rates distort the term structure of interest rates and prices of risk relative to an economy where central authorities adjust the money supply without taking into consideration the slope of the yield curve. Closed-form expressions for all equilibrium quantities are presented and the impact of quantitative easing on prices, risk premium and volatility of financial markets instruments, such as stocks and bonds, are evaluated. The changes in macroeconomic variables such as consumption, money demand and investment policies are also investigated. Under the adopted parametrization, quantitative easing is welfare improving. In addition, quantitative easing increases nominal bond and equity volatility, while reducing both real and nominal bond yields for all maturities.

Monetary policy has been given either too many positive attributes or, in contrast, only economy-disturbing features. Central banks must take into account a wide variety of factors to achieve a proper characterization of modern economies for the optimal implementation of monetary policy. Such is the case of central bank accountability and monetary policy effectiveness. The objective of this dissertation is to examine these two concerns relevant to the current macroeconomic debate. The analyses are carried out using an innovative set of tools to extract presumably important information from historical data of selected macroeconomic indicators. This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay explores the causality between the elements of the "celebrated" Taylor rule, using a Structural Vector Autoregression approach on US data. Directed acyclical graph techniques and Bayesian search models are used to identify the contemporaneous causal structure in the construction of impulse-response functions. Further analysis is performed by evaluating the implications of performing standard innovation-accounting procedures, derived from a Structural Vector Autoregression on interest rates, inflation, and unemployment. This is examined whenever a causal structure is imposed vs. when it is observed. We find that the interest rate causes inflation and unemployment. This suggests that the Fed has not followed a Taylor rule in any of the two periods under study. This result differs significantly to the case when the causal structure is imposed. The second essay presents an incentive-compatible approach based on proper scoring rules to evaluate density forecasts in order to reduce the central banks' accountability problem. Our results indicate that the surveyed forecasters have done a "better" job than the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). The third essay analyzes the causal structure of the factors that are presumed to influence the effectiveness of monetary policy, represented by the sacrifice ratio. Directed acyclical graph methods are used to identify the causal flow between such determinants and the sacrifice ratio. We find evidence that, while wage rigidities and central bank independence are the two major determinants of the sacrifice ratio, the degree of openness has no direct effect on the sacrifice ratio.

This dissertation investigates the impact of central banks' asset purchase programs on the economy and the role of frictions in the corporate loan markets. It builds a series of models with trading and information frictions in goods market and credit market. Chapter 1 introduces the main idea in this thesis and presents a review on central banks' asset purchase programs and unconventional monetary policies. Chapter 2 constructs a model of the monetary economy with multiple nominal assets. Assets differ in terms of the liquidity services they provide. I show that the central bank can control the overall liquidity and welfare of the economy by changing the relative supply of assets. A liquidity trap exists away from the Friedman rule that has a positive real interest rate; the central bank's asset purchase/sale programs may be ineffective in instances of low enough inflation rates. My model also enables me to study the welfare effects of a restriction on trading with government bonds. Chapter 3 investigates the effects of open-market operations on the distributions of assets and prices. It offers a theoretical framework to incorporate multiple asset holdings in a tractable heterogeneous-agent model. This model features competitive search, which produces distributions of money and bond holdings as well as price dispersion among submarkets. At a high enough bond supply, the equilibrium shows segmentation in the asset market; only households with good income shocks participate in the bond market. Segmentation in the asset market is generated endogenously without assuming any rigidities or frictions in the asset market. Numerical exercises show that when the asset market is segmented, the central bank can improve welfare by purchasing bonds and supplying money. Chapter 4 develops a model of loan markets in which lenders post an array of heterogeneous contracts, then borrowers tradeoff terms of loan contracts and matching probability between themselves. I show that a unique separating equilibrium exists where each type of borrower applies to a certain type of contract. Chapter 4 also provides empirical evidence of both price dispersion and credit rationing in the corporate loan market. Chapter 5 offers concluding remarks and possible extensions. / Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2014-02-03 10:31:40.883