Die Politik billigen Geldes in den USA hat - verbunden mit anderen Versäumnissen, insbesondere im Bereich der Bankenregulierung, sowie einer daraus resultierenden Intransparenz auf den internationalen Finanzmärkten - zur aktuellen Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise geführt. Dem FED ist daher der...

When accepting the Maastricht treaty, the members of the Euro-zone agreed on the establishment of a very independent European Central Bank (ECB). Over the years, however, French political leaders systematically brought forward proposals undermining the ECB’s independence, much to the dismay of...

The paper studies the relationship between two institutional innovations in monetary policy of the past few decades: central bank independence (CBI) and explicit inflation targeting (EIT). The aim is to make inferences about the optimal institutional design of monetary policy, and the right...

This paper focuses on the empirical link between monetary policy transparency and output volatility. Key questions addressed are: (i) Does transparency about policy processes stabilize output? (ii) Whether different aspects of transparency differ qualitatively or quantitatively in terms of their...

Following the experience of the global financial crisis, central banks have been asked to undertake unprecedented responsibilities. Governments and the public appear to have high expectations that monetary policy can provide solutions to problems that do not necessarily fit in the realm of...

This paper reviews arguments for central bank independence and presents new evidence on the impact of central bank (in)dependence on the level and variability of inflation, money growth, the level and financing of government budget deficits and economic growth, using three different measures of...

This paper examines the performance of monetary policy under the new framework established in 1997 up to the end of the Labour government in May 2010. Performance was relatively good in the years before the crisis, but much weaker from 2008. The new framework largely neglected open economy...

The financial crisis, on the one hand, and the recourse to ‘unconventional’ monetary policy, on the other, have given a sharp jolt to perceptions of the role and status of central banks. In this paper we start with a brief ‘contrarian’ history of central banks since the second world war,...

This paper examines the influence that several factors may have on the relationship between legal Central Bank Independence (CBI), on the one hand, and the inflation and real GDP growth on the other. Using multivariate regression analysis for 39 OECD during the two periods, 1991-1998 and...