The boundaries of central bank independence: lessons from unconventional times
- What institutional arrangements for an independent central bank with a price stability mandate promote good policy outcomes when unconventional policies become necessary? Unconventional monetary policy poses challenges. The large scale asset purchases needed to counteract the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates have uncomfortable fiscal and distributional consequences and require central banks to assume greater risks on their balance sheets. In his paper, Athanasios Orphanides draws lessons from the experience of the Bank of Japan (BoJ) since the late 1990s for the institutional design of independent central banks. He comes to the conclusion that lack of clarity on the precise definition of price stability, coupled with concerns about the legitimacy of large balance sheet expansions, hinders policy: It encourages the central bank to eschew the decisive quantitative easing needed to reflate the economy and instead to accommodate too-low inflation. The BoJ’s experience with the zero lower bound suggests important benefits from a clear definition of price stability as a symmetric 2% goal for inflation, which the Bank adopted in 2013.
Author: | Athanasios OrphanidesORCiDGND |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-475982 |
URL: | https://www.imfs-frankfurt.de/de/forschung/imfs-working-papers/ |
Parent Title (English): | Working paper series / Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability ; 124 |
Series (Serial Number): | Working paper series / Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (124) |
Publisher: | Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Univ., Inst. for Monetary and Financial Stability |
Place of publication: | Frankfurt am Main |
Document Type: | Working Paper |
Language: | English |
Year of Completion: | 2018 |
Year of first Publication: | 2018 |
Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
Release Date: | 2018/09/27 |
Tag: | Bank of Japan; ECB; Federal Reserve; balance sheet risk; central bank independence; inflation target; price stability; quantitative easing; zero lower bound |
Issue: | August 2018 |
Page Number: | 33 |
HeBIS-PPN: | 439413303 |
Institutes: | Wirtschaftswissenschaften / Wirtschaftswissenschaften |
Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS) | |
Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / Center for Financial Studies (CFS) | |
Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe (SAFE) | |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | 3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft |
Sammlungen: | Universitätspublikationen |
Licence (German): | Deutsches Urheberrecht |