Many countries have undertaken central-bank independence reforms, but the years of implementation differ. What explains such differences in timing? This is of interest more broadly, as it sheds light on factors that matter for the speed at which economic reforms come about. We study a rich set...

Central banks have been made more independent in many countries. A common rationale has been the existence of a credibility (or lack-of-trust) problem for monetary policy. This indicates a possible and until now unexplored link between social trust and central-bank independence. Our empirical...

In this paper, we use a non-parametric regression method to compare the transition process from high to low inflation with the implementation dates of central bank independence reforms. In most countries, price stability is achieved before more independence is given to the central bank....