Using data on the occurence of central bank independence (CBI) reforms in 131 countries during 1980-2005, we test whether they were important in reducing inflation and maintaining price stability. CBI reforms are found to have reduced inflation on average 3.31% when countries with historically...

It is something of a puzzle that politicians around the world have chosen to give up power to independent central banks, thereby reducing their possibilities to fine-tune the economy. In this paper the determinants of central bank independence (CBI) reforms are studied using a new data set on...

Using data on the occurrence of central bank independence (CBI) reforms in 131 countries during 1980-2005, we test whether they were important in reducing inflation and maintaining price stability. CBI reforms are found to have reduced inflation on average 3.31% when countries with historically...