We supplement the existing empirical literature on Fed independence with a contextualized episodic history to corroborate the empirical literature and inform future studies. We examine the postwar Fed to focus on the ability of the Fed to forge a monetary path independent of political influence...

Implicit in monetary models and policy prescriptions is the assumption that the Fed is independent of political and bureaucratic influence. We challenge this assumption. We consider three channels through which the independence of the Fed has been compromised over its 100-year history; debt...