Designing Monetary Policy Committees

We integrate a monetary policy committee into a New Keynesian model to assess the consequences of the committee's institutional characteristics for welfare. First, we prove that uncertainty about the committee's future composition may be desirable. Second, we show that longer terms of central bankers lead to more effective output stabilization at the expense of higher inflation variability. Third, larger committees allow for more efficient stabilization of both output and inflation, provided that the pool of candidates is sufficiently diverse. Finally, longer terms induce the government to appoint more conservative central bankers, which is conducive to welfare.