Why Is Central Bank Independence So Widely Approved?

摘要

So complete is the consensus which now exists over the desirability of central bank independence that it is possible to forget how quickly it emerged. Yet it was only in 1988 that Alberto Alesina wrote, "This paper argues tentatively that independent Central Banks have been associated with a lower average inflation rate and may have been responsible for reducing politically induced volatility of monetary policy and inflation." In 1989, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand became independent. In the same year the Delors Report proposed giving unprecedented independence to the projected European Central Bank, and very soon after—in 1992—these proposals were largely implemented in the Maastricht Treaty. Meanwhile, Vittorio Grilli, Donato Masciandaro, and Guido Tabellini (1991) reaffirmed Alesina's claim that independence is associated with low inflation and further claimed that this benefit brings no cost in lower output.