Imperfect Central Bank Communication Information Versus Distraction

Download or read book Imperfect Central Bank Communication - Information Versus Distraction written by Pär Österholm and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2008-03 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of the information communicated by central banks is noisy or imperfect. This paper considers the potential benefits and limitations of central bank communications in a model of imperfect knowledge and learning. It is shown that the value of communicating imperfect information is ambiguous. There is a risk that the central bank can distract the public; this means that the central bank may prefer to focus its communication policies on the information it knows most about. Indeed, conveying more certain information may improve the public's understanding to the extent that it "crowds out" a role for communicating imperfect information.