While not obvious at first sight, in many modern economies, the position of a monetary authority is similar to the position of the highest-level court (Goodhart (2002)). For example, both bodies are expected to operate independently even though there are crosscountry differences in what...

This paper analyzes the voting records of four central banks (Sweden, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic) with spatial models of voting. We infer the policy preferences of the monetary policy committee members and use these to analyze the evolution in preferences over time and the...