Voting Transparency in a Monetary Union

We examine whether the monetary policy committee of a monetary union should publish its voting records when members are appointed by national politicians. We show that the publication of voting records lowers overall welfare. This finding also holds for arbitrary levels of private benefits from holding office and if governments incur costs when replacing committee members. High private benefits of committee members always lower overall welfare, as they induce nonpartisan members to care more about being reappointed than about beneficial policy outcomes. Nonrenewable but long terms for national committee members and delegating the appointment of all committee members to a union-wide authority would be desirable.