Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-22dnz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T10:43:44.443Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Pristine and Parsimonious Policy

Can Central Banks Ever Get Back to It and Why They Should Try

from Part I - Monetary Economics and Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2018

Philipp Hartmann
Affiliation:
European Central Bank, Frankfurt
Haizhou Huang
Affiliation:
China International Capital Corporation
Dirk Schoenmaker
Affiliation:
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam
Get access

Summary

Central banks are more powerful than for almost a century, which has contributed to discomfort and some criticism amongst commentators. This chapter reviews some of the current threats to their independence in making the case that central bank mandates need to comply with general criteria for the legitimacy of unelected power. Those criteria are developed into general principles for constraining central bank balance sheet management. This is necessary to stop central banks occupying fiscal territory for too long.
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alesina, Alberto and Tabellini, Guido (2007), ‘Bureaucrats or Politicians? Part I: A Single Policy Task’, American Economic Review, 97(1), pp. 169–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alesina, Alberto and Tabellini, Guido (2008), ‘Bureaucrats or Politicians? Part II: Multiple Policy Tasks’, Journal of Public Economics, 92, pp. 426–47.Google Scholar
Blanchard, Olivier, Cerutti, Eugenio and Summers, Lawrence H. (2015), ‘Inflation and Activity: Two Explorations and Their Monetary Policy Implications’, Working Paper Series WP15-19, Peterson Institute for International Economics.Google Scholar
Goodhart, C. (1988), The Evolution of Central Banks, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Milgrom, Paul and Holmstrom, Bengt (1991), ‘Multi-task Principal-Agent Analysis: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership and Job Design’, Journal of Law, Economics & Organisation, 7 (special issue), pp. 2452.Google Scholar
Pettit, Philip (2004), ‘Depoliticizing Democracy’, Ratio Juris, 17(1), pp. 5265.Google Scholar
Pettit, Philip (2012), On the People’s Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tucker, Paul (2014a), ‘Independent Agencies in Democracies: Legitimacy and Boundaries for the New Central Banks’, the 2014 Gordon Lecture, Harvard Kennedy School, 1 May.Google Scholar
Tucker, Paul (2014b), ‘The Lender of Last Resort and Modern Central Banking: Principles and Reconstruction’, BIS Papers No. 79.Google Scholar
Tucker, Paul (2016), The Political Economy of Central Bank Balance Sheet Management, New York, NY: Columbia University, 5 May. www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/events/markets/2016/0504-2016Google Scholar
Volcker, Paul (1990), The Triumph of Central Banking?, Per Jacobsson Lecture.Google Scholar
Yellen, Janet L. (2016), ‘Macroeconomic Research After the Crisis’, delivered at ‘The Elusive “Great” Recovery: Causes and Implications for Future Business Cycle Dynamics’ conference, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 14 October.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×