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Summary

Chapter 7 takes an Olsonian perspective. We ask the question of what drove central bank balance sheet policies in democracies. This development is understood from the perspective of Mancur Olson’s ground-breaking theory of the ‘rise and decline of nations’ which accounts for the increasing difficulty to reform as distributional coalitions impose the ‘slavery of the rent-seeking society’ (as the former chief economist of the GATT, Jan Tumlir, so appropriately put it) on democratic societies. In light of these considerations, the factual degree of central bank independence might lower than it appears at first glance.

Central bank independence has become one of the most widely accepted tenets of modern monetary policy. According to this view, the main role of independent central banks is to maintain price stability through the adjustment of short-term interest rates. Reconsidering Central Bank Independence argues that the global financial crisis has undermined confidence in this view as central banks increasingly have to address concerns other than price stability, such as financial stability, the need for output recovery and other broader policy goals. Large balance-sheet expansion by central banks followed the global financial crisis, which overlapped considerably with the financial policy of their respective governments. Exploring the consequences of this shift to a more diverse set of policy challenges, this book calls for a return to the consensus role for central banks and analyses what this might mean for their future independence.

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7 - Fiscal Needs and Low Interest Rates Policy in an Olsonian Setting

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Reconsidering Central Bank Independence

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7 - Fiscal Needs and Low Interest Rates Policy in an Olsonian Setting

Summary

Reconsidering Central Bank Independence