IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ime/imedps/12-e-09.html

The Elusive Promise of Independent Central Banking

Author

Listed:
  • Marvin Goodfriend

    (Professor of Economics, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University (E-mail: marvingd@andrew.cmu.edu))

Abstract

Independent central banking is reviewed as it emerged first under the gold standard and later with an inconvertible paper money. Monetary and credit policy are compared and contrasted as practiced by the 19th century Bank of England and the Federal Reserve. The lesson is that wide operational and financial independence given to monetary and credit policy in the public interest subjects the central bank to incentives detrimental for macroeconomic and financial stability. An independent central bank needs the double discipline of a priority for price stability and bounds on expansive credit initiatives to secure its promise for stabilization policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Marvin Goodfriend, 2012. "The Elusive Promise of Independent Central Banking," IMES Discussion Paper Series 12-E-09, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    • Handle: RePEc:ime:imedps:12-e-09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.imes.boj.or.jp/research/papers/english/12-E-09.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Garbade, Kenneth D., 2012. "Birth of a Market: The U.S. Treasury Securities Market from the Great War to the Great Depression," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262016370, December.
    2. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 1989. "Does Monetary Policy Matter? A New Test in the Spirit of Friedman and Schwartz," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 121-184, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Taylor, John B, 1979. "Estimation and Control of a Macroeconomic Model with Rational Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1267-1286, September.
    4. McCallum, Bennett T, 1995. "Two Fallacies Concerning Central-Bank Independence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 207-211, May.
    5. Mankiw, N Gregory & Miron, Jeffrey A & Weil, David N, 1987. "The Adjustment of Expectations to a Change in Regime: A Study of the Founding of the Federal Reserve," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 358-374, June.
    6. Marvin Goodfriend & Robert G. King, 1988. "Financial deregulation, monetary policy, and central banking," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 74(May), pages 3-22.
    7. Alex Cukierman, 1992. "Central Bank Strategy, Credibility, and Independence: Theory and Evidence," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262031981, December.
    8. Cukierman Alex, 1992. "CENTRAL BANK STRATEGY, CREDIBILITY, AND INDEPENDANCE: THEORY AND EVIDENCE: Compte Rendu par Dominique Cariofillo," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 3(4), pages 581-590, December.
    9. Edward C. Prescott, 2006. "Nobel Lecture: The Transformation of Macroeconomic Policy and Research," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 203-235, April.
    10. Marvin Goodfriend & Jeffrey M. Lacker, 1999. "Limited commitment and central bank lending," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Fall, pages 1-27.
    11. Edward C. Prescott, 2006. "The Transformation of Macroeconomic Policy and Research," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 50(1), pages 3-20, March.
    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. Goodfriend, Marvin, 2014. "Lessons from a century of FED policy: Why monetary and credit policies need rules and boundaries," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 112-120.
    2. Francesca Castellani & Xavier Debrun, 2005. "Designing Macroeconomic Frameworks: A Positive Analysis of Monetary and Fiscal Delegation," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(1), pages 87-117, March.
    3. Ftiti, Zied & Aguir, Abdelkader & Smida, Mounir, 2017. "Time-inconsistency and expansionary business cycle theories: What does matter for the central bank independence–inflation relationship?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 215-227.
    4. Adam S. Posen, 1995. "Declarations Are Not Enough: Financial Sector Sources of Central Bank Independence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1995, Volume 10, pages 253-274, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777, August.
    6. Masciandaro, Donato & Romelli, Davide, 2015. "Ups and downs of central bank independence from the Great Inflation to the Great Recession: theory, institutions and empirics," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(3), pages 259-289, December.
    7. Marco Lossani & Piergiovanna Natale & Patrizio Tirelli, 1997. "Fiscal Policy and Imperfectly Credible Targets: Should We Appoint Expenditure-Conservative Central Bankers?," Working Papers 06, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Jul 1997.
    8. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Eric Le Borgne, 2005. "The politics of central bank independence: a theory of pandering and learning in government," Staff Reports 205, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    9. Marco Lossani & Piergiovanna Natale & Patrizio Tirelli, 2001. "Fiscal Policy and Inflation Targets: Does Credibility Matter?," Economia politica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 371-392.
    10. Francisco Rosende, 1997. "La Autonomía del Banco Central una Vez Más," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 34(101), pages 3-26.
    11. Donato Masciandaro & Davide Romelli, 2018. "Beyond the Central Bank Independence Veil: New Evidence," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1871, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    12. Kushal Banik Chowdhury & Kaustav Kanti Sarkar & Srikanta Kundu, 2021. "Nonlinear relationships between inflation, output growth and uncertainty in India: New evidence from a bivariate threshold model," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(3), pages 469-493, July.
    13. Alex Cukierman & Stefan Gerlach, 2003. "The inflation bias revisited: theory and some international evidence," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 71(5), pages 541-565, September.
    14. Price, Simon, 1997. "Political Business Cycles and Macroeconomic Credibility: A Survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 92(3-4), pages 407-427, September.
    15. Frederic S. Mishkin, 1998. "The Dangers of Exchange‐Rate Pegging in Emerging‐Market Countries," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(1), pages 81-101, October.
    16. Gartner, Manfred, 1996. "Political business cycles when real activity is persistent," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 679-692.
    17. Esteban Colla de Robertis, 2010. "Monetary Policy Committees and the Decision to Publish Voting Records," Money Affairs, CEMLA, vol. 0(2), pages 97-139, July-Dece.
    18. Adriel Jost, 2018. "Cultural Differences in Monetary Policy Preferences," Working Papers 2018-02, Swiss National Bank.
    19. repec:bla:jecsur:v:14:y:2000:i:5:p:513-26 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Carl E. Walsh, 2002. "When should central bankers be fired?," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 1-21, March.
    21. Frederic S Mishkin, 1997. "Strategies for Controlling Inflation," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Philip Lowe (ed.),Monetary Policy and Inflation Targeting, Reserve Bank of Australia.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook

    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:ime:imedps:12-e-09. 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: Kinken (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imegvjp.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.