Fifty Shades of QE: Career Concerns of Central Bankers
Elisabeth Kempf, Assistant Professor of Finance
Lubos Pastor, Charles P. McQuaid Professor of Finance
We analyze how career concerns shape the economic research produced at central banks. We construct a novel, hand-collected dataset comprising 54 research papers that study the effect of quantitative easing (QE) programs on inflation and output in the US, the UK, and the Euro area. We test whether central bank researchers find similar economic effects of QE compared to academics, as well as how their research findings influence their likelihood of promotion. We also plan to complement our empirical analysis with a survey of central banks to better understand the degree of managerial involvement in the research process across various central banks.
Fifty shades of QE: Comparing findings of central bankers and academics, with Brian Fabo, Martina Jancokova, and Elisabeth Kempf, 2021, Journal of Monetary Economics 120, 1-20.