Sull'irrilevanza dell'indipendenza delle Banche centrali

Sull'irrilevanza dell'indipendenza delle Banche centrali (di Gustavo Piga) - ABSTRACT: In this paper we take another look at the literature on central bank independence. We show that the representative-agent approach to monetary policy is seriously flawed and should not be trusted upon to derive institutional solutions to the inflation-ary-bias. We then show that the political approach to monetary policy is definitely su-perior in accounting for the inflationary bias in society and that this has strong impli-cations for the set-up of institutional arrangements, like central-bank independence, and the role of contractual arrangements, like indexation. Central bank independence, if appropriately modeled, is shown to be incapable of reducing inflationary pressures in society. We then identify some issues in the theory of central banking that have not been clearly solved and we offer some intuition as to the way they could be studied. We conclude by showing some potentially worrisome implications for the future of the European Monetary Union.