This is a Man’s world : autorité et pouvoir genrés dans le milieu des banques centrales

Abstract

Cet article traite de la question du genre dans le milieu des banques centrales. Ce dernier est marqué historiquement par la domination masculine, rendue visible par le nombre très faible de femmes dirigeant des banques centrales ou y exerçant des fonctions importantes. À partir d’une approche qualitative basée sur six interviews de femmes banquières centrales ou proches de la direction de banques centrales, ainsi que de l’analyse de données officielles des banques centrales, nous posons l’hypothèse qu’il existe une inadéquation entre pouvoir et autorité, qui s'avère défavorable aux femmes dans ce milieu. Même si nos résultats ne confirment que partiellement cette hypothèse, nous montrons qu’il serait opportun, par rapport au fonctionnement et à la gouvernance des banques centrales, de redéfinir de nouvelles attitudes et de renouveler leur politique de recrutement en donnant davantage de place aux femmes.

Central banking for a social-ecological transformation

“…A renewed governance would combine the necessary technical expertise on money and finance (which may not only come from economics and finance but also from history, anthropology or sociology) with a wider expertise equipping central banks with the ability to foresee the impacts of their policy on society and the environment. This requires committee members with various backgrounds (also in social and environmental sciences), gendered balanced (G. Vallet, 2019) and ideally of various social and ethnic origins. It further requires to impose a significant and sufficiently high number of representatives outside of the financial industry: Beyond other sectors of the economy, labour unions and environmental organizations should have reserved seats in advisory and executive committees.…”

Great Power, Great Responsibility: Addressing the Underestimated Issue of Central Bank’s Social Responsibility

“…Such a socially differentiated impact is particularly visible for women, demonstrating the gendered dimension of monetary policy (Vallet, 2019). Indeed, depending on their sector of activity, variations in the interest rate can prove more or less favourable to women for access to employment or entrepreneurship for instance and continued employment as well as in relation to the distribution of income and access to real estate ownership (Braunstein & Heintz, 2008).…”

“…the technical capacity to achieve an objective linked to their remit. Such a capacity relates to central bankers' academic background: central bankers have become increasingly recruited for their skills in macroeconomics, finance and econometrics (Diouf & Pépin, 2017;Vallet, 2019).…”

“…Central bankers are not a part of these critics, through their reputation as a closed-off group (Johnson, 2016). Such a reputation relates to their academic profiles -they have been educated in a few institutions imparting the same type of knowledge (Vallet, 2019) -but also to their links with the world of banking and finance and even with politics (Riles, 2018).…”

“…Within this framework, the "principal-agent" relation described above can be developed around the convergence of the social preferences of the central banker and the politics, focusing on a desire for price stability (Walsh, 1995): this mission provides benefits both to society and the central bankers whose ability to complete their mission in part determines their career. Specifically, since low inflation enables to preserve the value of capital and thus of the interests of banking and financial institutions, being "hawks" eases the possibility of cross-mobility that exists between careers in central banks and careers in the above institutions (Diouf & Pépin, 2017;Vallet, 2019).…”