Governing money: central banks in international and comparative political economy

Manuela Moschella

Chapter 8 in Handbook of Comparative Political Economy, 2025, pp 152-166 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Central banks are among the most influential decision-makers in domestic political economies. In order to understand the power that central banks command, this chapter pursues a twofold objective. First, the chapter situates the study of central banks and monetary policy in International Political Economy (IPE) and Comparative Political Economy (CPE). In particular, the chapter shows that, while the study of central banks in the two disciplines has generally mapped the traditional division of labor between them, with the IPE more focused on global factors and CPE focussed on domestic ones, both IPE and CPE have significantly contributed to shedding light on the politics behind central banks and monetary policy. Second, the chapter showcases that the political nature of central banks is not static but evolves over time. In particular, the chapter traces the institutional trajectory of central banks from a historical era (1980–2007) where the distributive consequences of monetary policy were largely hidden behind legal independence and the narrowing of central banks’ goal to price stability to an era (2008–present) where the scope of monetary policy has expanded and its consequences have become highly visible and contested.

Keywords: Central banks; Monetary policy; Depoliticization; Politicization; Independence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035327775
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