Granting central banks independence from short-term political control is widely assumed to decrease inflation by increasing the credibility of commitments to price stability. This paper analyzes public- and private-sector behavior in a sample of seventeen OECD countries for evidence of...

Does the adoption of an inflation target by a country have an effect on that country's rate of inflation and on inflation's interaction with real economic variables? Does inflation targeting alter private-sector expectations? The question of effectiveness must be posed as a counterfactual -did...