For many decades, central banks have preferred to stay in the shadow and talk as little as possible. For some, communications have been a distraction, for others, an extracurricular activity. However, the world has changed, and so has the central banking community. This change dictates the topic of this year’s Annual Research Conference (ARC) – transparency of central banks. The National Bank of Ukraine and Narodowy Bank Polski convene the ARC every year, gathering over 400 attendees from more than 20 countries.
The conference Central Bank Communications: From Mystery to Transparency will take place on 23-24 May 2019 in Kyiv. The Canada-IMF Technical Assistance Project NBU Institutional Capacity Building, the Kyiv School of Economics, and the Journal of Monetary Economics will support the ARC.
The two-day international event will provide a platform where central bankers, central banks’ stakeholders, communications specialists, and researchers from all over the world can share knowledge and experience.
The participants will seek answers to the following questions:
- How much should central banks communicate?
- Should central banks fight populism?
- What new technologies help central banks communicate with the general public?
- Are communications equally effective in different areas of policy?
- How to form sustainable expectations among the public, the financial sector, and businesses about central bank policies? Why is it important to do so?
- Can talking too much cause even more uncertainty?
- How should central banks explain their actions and send effective policy signals to stakeholders in a manner that would make these signals discernible from white noise?
Policymakers and and experts from the central banks of the Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, UK, the Unites States, as well as the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the world’s leading universities will speak at the ARC. More specifically, many of the speakers have experience managing central banks and will talk about how communications help the “banks of banks” pursue their mandates.
The highlight of this year’s ARC will be the speech by Riksbank Governor Stefan Ingves, under whose leadership the Swedish central bank received the Transparency Award from Central Banking Awards in 2014. Effective communications enabled the Riksbank to form correct expectations among the public, the financial sector, and businesses, including about monetary policy. The Riksbank made its communications more clear-cut, intelligible, systemic, and comprehensive, and its policy more predictable. Eventually, this raised confidence in the central bank. In 2019, the NBU received the same award for significant achievements in transparency and in building dialogue with stakeholders.
In addition, Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine Yakiv Smolii, Narodowy Bank Polski’s Board member Paweł Szałamacha, the Bank of Lithuania’s Governor Vitas Vasiliauskas, the Czech National Bank’s Ex-Governor Miroslav Singer, the ECB’s Director General for Communications Christine Graeff, and the Bank of England’s Executive Director for Communications Gareth Ramsay will share their perspectives on central bank transparency during the ARC.
The detailed program of this year’s conference is available at http://conference.bank.gov.ua/Conf/en.xhtml#about.
English is the working language of the ARC (simultaneous interpreting into Ukrainian will be provided).
Media accreditation is carried after the registration on the conference’s website.
The conference will be streamed live (the Ukrainian translation will be available). The event will be broadcast on the conference’s website and on the NBU’s YouTube channel).