Central bank independence remains important for core inflation containment in the current age of political populism.

Jonah Whanau

2019-04-21 10:07:54 Sun ET

Central bank independence remains important for core inflation containment in the current age of political populism. In accordance with the dual mandate of both price stability and maximum sustainable employment, most central banks seek to solve the dynamic consistency problem on the basis of a key desire to insulate monetary policy decisions from political influence.

A landmark empirical study of cross-country comparisons by Alberto Alesina and Lawrence Summers confirms that countries with better central bank independence experience lower inflation without suffering any real economic output or labor force penalty. An independent central bank can enhance fiscal discipline by reducing the relative likelihood of fiscal dominance and monetization of perennial budget deficits.

Historical experience and economic theory teach us an informative lesson. When monetary policy is subject to political control, people expect dovish expansionary interest rate adjustments and so anticipate higher wages and prices in response. The undesirable economic outcome is stagflation (or the worst-case scenario of both high inflation and high unemployment). It can cost prohibitive welfare losses for the central bank to bring down inflation with subsequent interest rate hikes. Key credible apolitical monetary policy decisions would thus promote price stability with minimal real impact on economic growth, employment, and capital investment.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms most stock market indexes from 2017 to 2024.

Dan Rochefort

2024-02-04 08:28:00 Sunday ET

Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms most stock market indexes from 2017 to 2024.

Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms most stock market indexes from 2017 to 2024. Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms the ma

+See More

President Trump ramps up 25% tariffs on $200 billion Chinese imports soon after China backtracks on the Sino-U.S. trade agreement.

Rose Prince

2019-05-09 10:28:00 Thursday ET

President Trump ramps up 25% tariffs on $200 billion Chinese imports soon after China backtracks on the Sino-U.S. trade agreement.

President Trump ramps up 25% tariffs on $200 billion Chinese imports soon after China backtracks on the Sino-American trade agreement. U.S. trade envoy Robe

+See More

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz proposes the primary economic priorities in lieu of neoliberalism.

Fiona Sydney

2019-06-29 17:30:00 Saturday ET

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz proposes the primary economic priorities in lieu of neoliberalism.

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz proposes the primary economic priorities in lieu of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism includes lower taxation, deregulation, socia

+See More

Credit supply growth drives business cycle fluctuations and often sows the seeds of their own subsequent destruction.

Fiona Sydney

2018-04-26 07:37:00 Thursday ET

Credit supply growth drives business cycle fluctuations and often sows the seeds of their own subsequent destruction.

Credit supply growth drives business cycle fluctuations and often sows the seeds of their own subsequent destruction. The global financial crisis from 2008

+See More

Public sentiment turns quite a bit against Facebook in light of the public issues around fake news.

Apple Boston

2017-12-03 08:37:00 Sunday ET

Public sentiment turns quite a bit against Facebook in light of the public issues around fake news.

Sean Parker, Napster founder and a former investor in Facebook, has become a "conscientious objector" on Facebook. Parker says Facebook explo

+See More

American exceptionalism often turns out to be the heuristic rule of thumb for better economic growth, low and stable inflation, full employment, and macro-financial stability.

Apple Boston

2026-07-01 11:29:00 Wednesday ET

American exceptionalism often turns out to be the heuristic rule of thumb for better economic growth, low and stable inflation, full employment, and macro-financial stability.

In recent years, higher American economic growth has been impressive both by historical standards and in comparison to the rest of the world. American excep

+See More