Are Central Banks’ Research Teams Fragile Because of Groupthink in the Area of Monetary Policy? – Evidence on Inflation Targeting

Abstract

In the recent years, the a great vast majority of the world’s central banks have globally failed to realize meet their inflation targets. We attempt to answer a question of determine whether such this failure resulted from insufficient inadequate organization organisation of economic research in those institutions. Our study shows a positive, but statistically weak, relationship between these two issues aspects. However, the analysis finds also finds a few several adverse irregularities in how research is organised in major central banks’s. research organizations. The research of the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bundesbank, and the Bank of England are is relatively less diversified compared tothan that of the European Central Bank. In the cases of Poland and Italy, central bank economic departments are dominated by groups of researchers focused on a narrow range of topics. On the other hand, the organization organisation of research departments in France and Canada supports a greater variety of topics and independence of researchers.

Keywords

• big data
• network analysis
• central banks
• groupthink