What Do Central Bankers Do? Evidence from the European Central Banks' Executive Board

31 Pages Posted: 21 Feb 2019

See all articles by Harald Badinger

Harald Badinger

Vienna University of Economics and Business

Volker Nitsch

Technical University of Darmstadt - Department of Law and Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research)

Date Written: 2019

Abstract

This paper examines how managers at the top of a public institution, central bank executives, allocate their working time. Using detailed information from personal diaries of the six members of the European Central Bank’s Executive Board over a period of two years, we codify and analyze more than 3,700 reported activities and compare the results with recent findings on the time use of CEOs in the private sector. We report four additional observations. First, the daily schedule of central bankers is dominated by routine tasks; variations in economic uncertainty have, on average, no significant effect on the number of activities. Second, there are sizable differences in the scope of activities across board members. Third, the change in publication rules of diary entries from ‘on request’ to ‘regular’ was associated with a significant decline in reported activities. Fourth, nationality matters: Board members interact disproportionately often with fellow nationals.

Keywords: governance, management, time use

JEL Classification: E020, E580, H830

Suggested Citation

Badinger, Harald and Nitsch, Volker, What Do Central Bankers Do? Evidence from the European Central Banks' Executive Board (2019). CESifo Working Paper No. 7467, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3338821 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3338821

Harald Badinger (Contact Author)

Vienna University of Economics and Business ( email )

Department of Economics
Althanstrasse 39-45
Vienna, 1090
Austria

Volker Nitsch

Technical University of Darmstadt - Department of Law and Economics ( email )

Marktplatz 15
Residenzschloss
Darmstadt, 64283
Germany

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

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