Central Banker's Behaviour in an Uncertain Environment

Abstract

Several recent papers are devoted to the examination of the central banker's behaviour in an uncertain economic environment. This paper proposes, from a central banker's point of view, a synthesis of the main sources of uncertainty as well as an illustration of their effects within an analytical framework. In particular, it shows that depending on the type of uncertainty and the choice of the selected loss function, the recommendations for monetary policy can be noticeably different. Retaining an ad hoc loss function - discretionary choice - in place of an endogenous loss function - choice consistent with the structural parameters - can involve considerable welfare losses.