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European Central Bank leaders in the global space of central bankers: A Geometric Data Analysis approach

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French Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

In this article, we analyse the space of the world's central bankers since the second half of the 1990s on the basis of a collection of public biographical data. The world's central bankers compose a global ‘reference space’ for the study of ECB leaders. ECB leaders are distinctive in certain dimensions of this space, especially in relation to the Asian (Japanese and Chinese) central bankers and, although to lesser extent, in relation to the US Federal Open Market Committee members. These distinctions relate to the properties of two different sub-groups of ECB members of the Governing Council: one group composed of the members of the executive board, and another comprising the governors of the national central banks. This article stresses the methodological use of Geometric Data Analysis when applying a multi-level and sociological perspective to the central bank's decisions and discourses: in the process of examining the relevant social space, this approach allows us to study the inter-individual social variations between agents at a micro-level and to analyse institutional differences in behaviour as a probable consequence of these variations. Monetary strategies and economic discourses of central banks are analysed as the probabilistic products of a combination of individuals’ orientations, which in turn are the results of variations in their biographical experiences, based on different cultural and cognitive dispositions.

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Notes

  1. ‘Relance’, as it is labelled in French economic debates.

  2. This policy consists in enlarging the assets the central bank holds, in order to support the distribution of credit and to maintain the spreads between market rates at a low level. See Bentoglio and Guidoni (2009).

  3. The ECB is clearly one of the strongest supporters of the restrictive budget policies that are being implemented all over Europe during 2010.

  4. For a general synthesis on the ECB: Dyson and Marcussen (2009); a systematic presentation and legitimization of the doctrine is developed in Issing (2008); a sociological analysis: Lebaron (2006).

  5. The economic journal La Tribune opposes in its 26 July 2010 first page « Monsieur Rigueur » (Jean-Claude Trichet) and « Monsieur Relance » (Ben Bernanke).

  6. See Le Roux and Rouanet (2004, pp. 203–210).

  7. The analyses presented here and the graphs have been done with the SPAD 7.0 program.

  8. In line with the above discussion, we have coded biographical information on the basis of how reliable and accessible the data are, and on what we see as the most relevant sociological aspects. We combine variables related to socio-demographic properties (gender and age, in three large categories), educational background (educational level, specialization and geographical location of studies conducted abroad), and different aspects of professional careers (dominant sector of the main career). A detailed description of the various categories used in the final analysis is given in Appendix, together with the elementary statistics for the population.

  9. It would have been meaningful to also integrate information about the individuals’ social and family origins, as this kind of information is sociologically important, but such information is also scarce and difficult to find. Consequently, no such information has been included in the following analysis.

  10. With the exception of careers in the Bundesbank, which presuppose a high degree of monetary orthodoxy and devotion to budgetary balance.

  11. We could then interpret plane 3–4 globally. For reasons of exposition, we will stick to an interpretation axis by axis.

  12. The clouds of individuals in plane 1–2 and 3–4 are presented in the Appendix (Figures 6 and 7).

  13. In the following subsections, we will restrict ourselves to the descriptive part of the analysis. Later in this article, a description of the inductive part of this analysis, once an effect is detected, will follow.

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Acknowledgements

Our thanks go to Didier Georgakakis (Professor of Political Science, IUF/GSPE) who supported us at different stages of this text, to Karin Darin (Researcher, CURAPP), who was associated with the data collection and the revisions of the text, and to two anonymous referees.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Picardie – Jules Verne, CURAPP UMR, CNRS 6054, Pole Universitaire Cathedrale 10, Placette Lafleur, BP 2716, Amiens Cedex 1, 80027, France

    Frédéric Lebaron

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Appendix

Appendix

Results of specific MCA

See Table A1.

Table a1 Eigenvalues, rates of variance and modified rates
Full size table

Elementary statistics

See Tables A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, A10, A11, A12 and A13 and Figures A1 and A2.

Table a2 Sex ratio
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Table a3 Date of birth
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Table a4 Education level
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Table a5 Education speciality
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Table a6 Studies abroad
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Table a7 Dominant career
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Table a8 Career in politics
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Table a9 Career in universities
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Table a10 Career in other private sectors
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Table a11 Career in finance (banks or financial institutions, including public financial institutions)
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Table a12 Career in the central bank
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Table a13 Number of sectors
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Figure A1
figure 10

Cloud of individuals plane 1–2.

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Figure A2
figure 11

Cloud of individuals plane 3–4.

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Lebaron, F. European Central Bank leaders in the global space of central bankers: A Geometric Data Analysis approach. Fr Polit 8, 294–320 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/fp.2010.15

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