Central Banking (central + banking)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Can Central Banking Survive the IT Revolution?

INTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 2 2000
Charles A. E. Goodhart
First page of article [source]


Monetary Policy Implementation: Past, Present and Future , Will Electronic Money Lead to the Eventual Demise of Central Banking?

INTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 2 2000
FreedmanArticle first published online: 16 DEC 200
This paper examines the ways in which central banks influence the very short-term interest rate in regimes with and without reserve requirements. It then examines the implications for monetary policy implementation of the spread of electronic money and the potential for other mechanisms to compete with settlement arrangements at central banks. It concludes that it is extremely unlikely that electronic money will displace bank notes or the settlement services that are offered by central banks in the foreseeable future. Moreover, even in the extremely unlikely case that the spread of stored-value cards leads to the elimination of bank notes and that the development of network money permits alternative settlement services to be offered that effectively competes with central bank services, central banks would very likely be able to continue to influence the very short-term rate of interest. They would therefore be able to maintain their influence over aggregate demand and inflation even in such circumstances. [source]


Dependent and Accountable: Evidence from the Modern Theory of Central Banking

JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 5 2000
Gustavo Piga
In this paper we take another look at the literature on central bank independence. We show that the representative-agent approach to monetary policy is seriously flawed and does not provide a sound basis for deriving institutional solutions to the inflationary-bias. We then argue that the political approach to monetary policy provides a better account of the inflationary-bias and that this has important implications for the set-up of institutional arrangements, like central-bank independence, and the role of contractual arrangements, like indexation. Central bank independence, if appropriately modeled, can fail to reduce inflationary pressures in plausible circumstances. We then identify some issues in the theory of central banking that have not been clearly resolved and we offer some intuition as to the way they could be studied. We conclude by showing some potentially worrisome implications for the future of the European Monetary Union. [source]


Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union

JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 4 2002
Andrew Moravcsik
Concern about the EU's ,democratic deficit' is misplaced. Judged against existing advanced industrial democracies, rather than an ideal plebiscitary or parliamentary democracy, the EU is legitimate. Its institutions are tightly constrained by constitutional checks and balances: narrow mandates, fiscal limits, super,majoritarian and concurrent voting requirements and separation of powers. The EU's appearance of exceptional insulation reflects the subset of functions it performs , central banking, constitutional adjudication, civil prosecution, economic diplomacy and technical administration. These are matters of low electoral salience commonly delegated in national systems, for normatively justifiable reasons. On balance, the EU redresses rather than creates biases in political representation, deliberation and output. [source]


Dependent and Accountable: Evidence from the Modern Theory of Central Banking

JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 5 2000
Gustavo Piga
In this paper we take another look at the literature on central bank independence. We show that the representative-agent approach to monetary policy is seriously flawed and does not provide a sound basis for deriving institutional solutions to the inflationary-bias. We then argue that the political approach to monetary policy provides a better account of the inflationary-bias and that this has important implications for the set-up of institutional arrangements, like central-bank independence, and the role of contractual arrangements, like indexation. Central bank independence, if appropriately modeled, can fail to reduce inflationary pressures in plausible circumstances. We then identify some issues in the theory of central banking that have not been clearly resolved and we offer some intuition as to the way they could be studied. We conclude by showing some potentially worrisome implications for the future of the European Monetary Union. [source]


Endogenous Money: What it is and Why it Matters

METROECONOMICA, Issue 2 2002
Thomas I. Palley
Endogenous money is widespread in economic theory. The post-Keynesian contribution is identification of a causal link between bank lending and the money supply. Though driven by macroeconomic concerns, the post-Keynesian debate has reduced to a microeconomic debate over the role of financial intermediaries in the accommodation process. In the IS,LM model endogenous money flattens the LM. This misses its substantive significance which is the discrediting of monetarist money supply policy rules and monetarist critiques of central banking, its identification of the key role of credit, and its provision of a credit-driven theory of the business cycle. [source]


The Limits of Rational Choice: New Institutionalism in the Test Bed of Central Banking Politics in Australia

POLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 3 2002
Stephen Bell
This paper tests the explanatory capacities of different versions of new institutionalism by examining the Australian case of a general transition in central banking practice and monetary politics: namely, the increased emphasis on low inflation and central bank independence. Standard versions of rational choice institutionalism largely dominate the literature on the politics of central banking, but this approach (here termed RC1) fails to account for Australian empirics. RC1 has a tendency to establish actor preferences exogenously to the analysis; actors'motives are also assumed a priori; actor's preferences are depicted in relatively static, ahistorical terms. And there is the tendency, even a methodological requirement, to assume relatively simple motives and preference sets among actors, in part because of the game theoretic nature of RC1 reasoning. It is possible to build a more accurate rational choice model by re-specifying and essentially updating the context, incentives and choice sets that have driven rational choice in this case. Enter RC2. However, this move subtly introduces methodological shifts and new theoretical challenges. By contrast, historical institutionalism uses an inductive methodology. Compared with deduction, it is arguably better able to deal with complexity and nuance. It also utilises a dynamic, historical approach, and specifies (dynamically) endogenous preference formation by interpretive actors. Historical institutionalism is also able to more easily incorporate a wider set of key explanatory variables and incorporate wider social aggregates. Hence, it is argued that historical institutionalism is the preferred explanatory theory and methodology in this case. [source]