Title: Do central bank independence reforms matter for inflation performance?

Authors: Mats Landström

Addresses: Department of Business and Economic Studies, University of Gävle, SE-80176 Gävle, Sweden

Abstract: A difference-in-difference approach was used to investigate whether central bank independence (CBI) reforms matter for inflation, based on a novel dataset including the possible occurrence of such reforms in 132 countries during the period 1980 to 2005. CBI-reforms are found to have contributed to bringing down high inflation rates where those existed, but they seem unrelated to performance in low-inflation countries.

Keywords: monetary policy; institutional reforms; central banking; price stability; political economy; delegation; central bank independence; banking reforms; inflation performance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBAAF.2011.043700

International Journal of Banking, Accounting and Finance, 2011 Vol.3 No.4, pp.320 - 335

Received: 02 Jul 2010
Accepted: 26 Jun 2011

Published online: 30 Sep 2014 *

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