From doves to hawks: A spatial analysis of voting in the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England

Hix, Simon; Høyland, Bjørn; Vivyan, Nick

doi:10.1111/j.1475-6765.2010.01916.x

From doves to hawks: A spatial analysis of voting in the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England

Hix, Simon; Høyland, Bjørn; Vivyan, Nick

Authors

Simon Hix

Bjørn Høyland

Professor Nick Vivyan nick.vivyan@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

This article examines the making of monetary policy in the United Kingdom between 1997 and 2008 by analysing voting behaviour in the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). It provides a new set of measures for the monetary policy preferences of individual MPC members by estimating a Bayesian item response model. The article demonstrates the usefulness of these measures by comparing the ideal points of outgoing MPC members with their successors and by looking at changes over time in the median ideal point on the MPC. The analysis indicates that the British Government has been able to move the position of the median voter on the MPC through its appointments to the Committee. This highlights the importance of central bank appointments for monetary policy.

Citation

Hix, S., Høyland, B., & Vivyan, N. (2010). From doves to hawks: A spatial analysis of voting in the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. European Journal of Political Research, 49(6), 731-758. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2010.01916.x

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	Oct 1, 2010
Deposit Date	Jul 8, 2011
Publicly Available Date	May 6, 2016
Journal	European Journal of Political Research
Print ISSN	0304-4130
Electronic ISSN	1475-6765
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	49
Issue	6
Pages	731-758
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2010.01916.x

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Copyright Statement
This is the accepted version of the following article: Hix, Simon, Høyland, Bjørn & Vivyan, Nick (2010), From doves to hawks: A spatial analysis of voting in the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. European Journal of Political Research, 49(6): 731-75, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2010.01916.x. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.