Central Banks as Experts: What Can Social Epistemology Say?
François Claveau
History and Philosophy of Science Lunchtime Talk Series, Departement of Philosophy, McGill University
November 2, 2017
Central banks are both regulatory and testimonial experts on the monetary economy. This paper deploys a procedural framework to assess whether laypeople should deem them worthy of their trust as testimonial experts. By focusing on three conditions for an effective error-correction mechanism, some worrisome characteristics of the expert community are identified. In short, we find that the interests of central banks in controlling the monetary economy – that is, in succeeding as regulatory experts – get in the way of their performance as detached testimonial experts.
This content has been updated on November 3rd, 2017 at 11 h 27 min.