Central Bank Autonomy: Lessons from Global Trends

Segalotto, Jean-Francois, Martin Sommer, Marco Arnone () and Bernard Laurens

No 07/88, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: We calculate indexes of central bank autonomy (CBA) for 163 central banks as of end-2003, and comparable indexes for a subgroup of 68 central banks as of the end of the 1980s. The results confirm strong improvements in both economic and political CBA over the past couple of decades, although more progress is needed to boost political autonomy of the central banks in emerging market and developing countries. Our analysis confirms that greater CBA has on average helped to maintain low inflation levels. The paper identifies four broad principles of central bank autonomy that have been shared by the majority of countries. Significant differences exist in the area of banking supervision where many central banks have retained a key role. Finally, we discuss the sequencing of reforms to separate the conduct of monetary and fiscal policies.

Keywords: Central banks; Inflation; Bank supervision; Monetary policy; Fiscal policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-mac, nep-mon and nep-pol
Date: Written
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2007/wp0788.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Central Bank Autonomy: Lessons from Global Trends (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfwpa:07/88

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund
Address: International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().