Does Central Bank Transparancy Reduce Interest Rates?

Central banks have become increasingly transparent during the last decade. One of the main bene ts of transparency predicted by theoreticalmodels is that it enhances the credibility, reputation, and exibility of monetary policy, which suggests that increased transparency should result in lower nominal interest rates.This paper exploits a detailed transparency data set to investigate this relationship for eight major central banks.It appears that for all central banks, the level of interest rates is affected by the degree of central bank transparency.In particular, the majority of the improvements in transparency are associated with significant effcts on interest rates, controlling for economic conditions.In most of these cases, interest rates are lower, often by around 50 basis points, although in some instances transparency appears to have had a detrimental effect on interest rates