Monetary policy and behavioural economics

📌MAR.2.08, Marshall Building

Monetary policy decisions are often analysed and seen through the lens of macroeconomics. More recently, microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic phenomena have become more popular and widespread in research. Large household data sets, but also consumer/producer panels and regular surveys complement data, for instance, from financial markets and national accounts. Behavioural economics is, hitherto, sparsely used in monetary policy, even though anecdotal evidence or narratives in the realm of monetary policy sometimes rely on behavioural concepts such as uncertainty attitudes, time preferences, or biases in the formation of expectations. In particular, the communication of monetary policy seems to warrant an analysis from the perspective of behavioural economics. Is there a good argument for more behavioural economics in monetary economics?

Martin Kocher is Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank and member of the ECB’s Governing Council since September 2025. He held the positions of Austrian Federal Minister of Labour from 2021 to 2022 and Federal Minster of Labour and the Economy from 2022 to March 2025. Prior to this, he was Scientific Director of the Vienna-based Institute for Advanced Studies, President of the Fiscal Advisory Council and Chairman of the Statistics Council. He is Full Professor of Economics at the University of Vienna and has held academic positions at universities in Munich, East Anglia, Amsterdam, Gothenburg, Brisbane and Innsbruck, where he obtained his doctorate.

Silvana Tenreyro is Professor of Economics at the LSE Department of Economics

Ricardo Reis is the Arthur Williams Phillips Professor of Economics at the LSE Department of Economics

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This event is co-hosted with the Centre for Macroeconomics.

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MAR.2.08, The Marshall Building, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom

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