TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lewis,Karen K.
TI  - Why Doesn't Society Minimize Central Bank Secrecy?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 3397
PY  - 1990
Y2  - July 1990
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3397
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3397.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Karen K. Lewis
Department of Finance, Wharton School
2300 SHDH
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6367
Tel: 215/898-7637
Fax: 215/898-6200
E-Mail: lewisk@wharton.upenn.edu
AB  - Societies have incentives to design institutions that allow central bank secrecy. This paper illustrates these incentives in two ways. First, if society tries to constrain secrecy in one way, central bankers will try to regain lost effectiveness by building up secrecy in other ways. Therefore, we may wind up accepting types of secrecy that appear preventable because reducing them would lead to higher costs. Second, if the social trade-offs between policy objectives change over time, the public may directly prefer greater central bank secrecy so that it will be surprised with expansionary policies when it most desires them. 
ER  -