IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bis/biswps/326.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The changing role of central banks

Author

Listed:
  • Charles Goodhart

Abstract

Although Central Banks have pursued the same objectives throughout their existence, primarily price and financial stability, the interpretation of their role in doing so has varied. We identify three stable epochs, when such interpretations had stabilised, ie 1. The Victorian era, 1840s to 1914; 2. The decades of government control, 1930s to 1960s; 3. The triumph of the markets, 1980s to 2007. Each epoch was followed by a confused inter-regnum, searching for a new consensual blueprint. The final such epoch concluded with a crisis, when it became apparent that macro-economic stability, the Great Moderation, plus (efficient) markets could not guarantee financial stability. So the search is now on for additional macro-prudential (counter-cyclical) instruments. The use of such instruments will need to be associated with controlled variations in systemic liquidity, and in the balance sheet of the Central Bank. Such control over its own balance sheet is the core, central function of any Central Bank, even more so than its role in setting short-term interest rates, which latter could be delegated. We end by surveying how relationships between Central Banks and governments may change over the next period.

Suggested Citation

  • Charles Goodhart, 2010. "The changing role of central banks," BIS Working Papers 326, Bank for International Settlements.
  • Handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:326
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bis.org/publ/work326.pdf
    File Function: Full PDF document
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://www.bis.org/publ/work326.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Avgouleas, Emilios & Goodhart, Charles & Schoenmaker, Dirk, 2010. "Living Wills as a Catalyst for Action," Working Papers 10-09, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    2. Paul Mizen (ed.), 2003. "Monetary History, Exchange Rates and Financial Markets," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2818.
    3. Alessandro Giustiniani & Mr. Wim Fonteyne & Wouter Bossu & Alessandro Gullo & Seán Kerr & Mr. Daniel C Hardy & Luis Cortavarria-Checkley, 2010. "Crisis Management and Resolution for a European Banking System," IMF Working Papers 2010/070, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Goodhart, C. A. E., 2010. "The Changing Role of Central Banks," Working Papers 11-27, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    2. Coudert, Virginie & Mignon, Valérie, 2013. "The “forward premium puzzle” and the sovereign default risk," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 491-511.
    3. Michael D. Bordo & Owen F. Humpage & Anna J. Schwartz, 2015. "Epilogue: Foreign-Exchange-Market Operations in the Twenty-First Century," NBER Chapters, in: Strained Relations: US Foreign-Exchange Operations and Monetary Policy in the Twentieth Century, pages 345-363, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Corbet, Shaen & Larkin, Charles, 2017. "Has the uniformity of banking regulation within the European Union restricted rather than encouraged sectoral development?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 48-65.
    5. Kaoru Hosono & Shogo Isobe, 2014. "The Financial Market Impact of Unconventional Monetary Policies in the U.S., the U.K., the Eurozone, and Japan," Discussion papers ron259, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan.
    6. Edward Nelson, 2019. "Karl Brunner and U.K. Monetary Debate," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2019-004, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    7. Maixe-Altes, J. Carles, 2009. "The diversity of organisational forms in banking: France, Italy and Spain 1900-2000," MPRA Paper 14838, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Ito, Takatoshi & Yabu, Tomoyoshi, 2007. "What prompts Japan to intervene in the Forex market? A new approach to a reaction function," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 193-212, March.
    9. Dominguez, Kathryn M.E., 2006. "When do central bank interventions influence intra-daily and longer-term exchange rate movements?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(7), pages 1051-1071, November.
    10. Lukasz Prorokowski, 2013. "Lessons from financial crisis contagion simulation in Europe," Studies in Economics and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 30(2), pages 159-188, May.
    11. Rughoo, Aarti & Sarantis, Nicholas, 2014. "The global financial crisis and integration in European retail banking," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 28-41.
    12. Degryse, H.A. & Elahi, M.A. & Penas, M.F., 2012. "Determinants of Banking System Fragility : A Regional Perspective," Discussion Paper 2012-015, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    13. Gerlach-Kristen, Petra & McCauley, Robert N. & Ueda, Kazuo, 2016. "Currency intervention and the global portfolio balance effect: Japanese lessons," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-16.
    14. Pasricha, Gurnain Kaur & Falagiarda, Matteo & Bijsterbosch, Martin & Aizenman, Joshua, 2018. "Domestic and multilateral effects of capital controls in emerging markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 48-58.
    15. Allen N. Berger & Björn Imbierowicz & Christian Rauch, 2016. "The Roles of Corporate Governance in Bank Failures during the Recent Financial Crisis," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(4), pages 729-770, June.
    16. Jeffrey Frankel, 2021. "Systematic Managed Floating," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Steven J Davis & Edward S Robinson & Bernard Yeung (ed.), THE ASIAN MONETARY POLICY FORUM Insights for Central Banking, chapter 5, pages 160-221, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. David Cobham, 2012. "The past, present, and future of central banking," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 729-749, WINTER.
    18. AMENDOLA, Adalgiso & BARRA, Cristian & BOCCIA, Marinella & PAPACCIO, Anna, 2018. "Market Structure and Financial Stability: Theory and Evidence," CELPE Discussion Papers 156, CELPE - CEnter for Labor and Political Economics, University of Salerno, Italy.
    19. repec:bof:bofrdp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201603021033 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Agnieszka Trzcinska, 2015. "The Impact of the New Resolution Regime on Public Support to Banks (Udzial sektora publicznego w kosztach ratowania bankow w swietle nowych przepisow w zakresie restrukturyzacji i uporzadkowanej likwi," Problemy Zarzadzania, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management, vol. 13(55), pages 120-133.
    21. Barry Eichengreen & David Leblang, 2008. "Democracy And Globalization," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 289-334, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    central banks; financial stability; financial regulation; bank taxes;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:326. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Beslmeisl (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bisssch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.