An empirical analysis of monetary policy committees composition and its relationship with monetary policy

Abstract

This paper compiles a novel and unique dataset encompassing 439 individuals who served as board members on 16 different inflation-targeting central banks’ monetary policy committees (MPCs) from 1999 to 2018. We document relevant trends over the past twenty years: (i) An increasing share of women serving on committees, albeit still a minority; (ii) an increase in the share of members with previous private sector experience and (iii) an increase in the average age and experience among members over time. Moreover, we find that: (i) A higher proportion of members with MBAs and Masters’ in economics is related to lower levels of inflation; (ii) a committee with more members with formations not in economics or law tends to be more lenient towards the monetary policy target; (iii) the average MPC age within a range of 55 and 60 years seems to be linked to less volatile inflation; and (iv) more MPC women members correlates with both lower and less volatile inflation.