What policy objective should a common central bank in a heterogeneous monetary union pursue? Should it base its decisions on the EU-wide average of inflation and growth or should it instead focus on (appropriately weighted) national welfare losses based on national rates of inflation and growth?...

We consider the political economy of a monetary union where member governments attempt to influence the policy of the common central bank. Modeling this as a common agency with incentive contracts, we show that if incentives are all that matters for the bank, the equilibrium implements a...