Postcommunist central banks: A democratic deficit?

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 17, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 90-103

  Johnson, Juliet ^a  

^a MCGILL UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 32944465596     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.2006.0010     Document Type: Review

References (28)

1. Willem F. Duisenberg, president of the European Central Bank, press conference. Frankfurt, Germany, 11 April 2001. Available at www.ecb.int.
2. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, remarks delivered at the annual dinner and Francis Boyer Lecture of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, D.C., 5 December 1996. Available at www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/1996/19961205.htm.
3. Examples include Alex Cukierman, et al., "Measuring the Independence of Central Banks and Its Effect on Policy Outcomes," World Bank Economic Review 6 (September 1992): 353-98;
4. and Robert Elgie, "Democratic Accountability and Central Bank Independence: Historical and Contemporary, National and European Perspectives," West European Politics 21 (September 1998): 53-76.
5. Major proponents include Kenneth Rogoff, "The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target," Quarterly Journal of Economics 100 (November 1985): 1169-89;
6. Alberto Alesina and Lawrence Summers, "Central Bank Independence and Macroeconomic Performance: Some Comparative Evidence," Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking 25 (May 1993): 151-62;
7. Michele Fratianni, et al., "Central Banking as a Political Principal-Agent Problem," Economic Inquiry 35 (April 1997): 378-93;
8. and William Bernhard, Banking on Reform: Political Parties and Central Bank Independence in the Industrial Democracies (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002).
9. Guillermo O'Donnell, "Horizontal Accountability in New Democracies," Journal of Democracy 9 (July 1998): 112-26.
10. Leading critics include Sheri Berman and Kathleen McNamara, "Bank on Democracy," Foreign Affairs 78 (March-April 1999): 2-8;
11. Paul Bowles and Gordon White, "Central Bank Independence: A Political Economy Approach," Journal of Development Studies 31 (December 1994): 235-64;
12. Ilene Grabel, "Ideology, Power, and the Rise of Independent Monetary Institutions in Emerging Economies," in Jonathan Kirshner, ed., Monetary Orders: Ambiguous Economics, Ubiquitous Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003);
13. and Joseph Stiglitz, "Central Banking in a Democratic Society," De Economist (Dordrecht, Netherlands) 146 (July 1998): 199-226.
14. Alan Blinder, "Central Bank Credibility: Why Do We Care? How Do We Build It?" NBER Working Paper Series 7161 (June 1999).
15. Alan Blinder, "Central Bank Credibility"
16. and Ian Down, "Central Bank Independence, Disinflations, and the Sacrifice Ratio," Comparative Political Studies 37 (May 2004): 399-434.
17. Joseph Stiglitz, "Central Banking in a Democratic Society," 217.
18. See Robert Barro, "Inflation and Growth," Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review 78 (May-June 1996): 153-69;
19. and Jonathan Kirshner, "The Inescapable Politics of Money," in Jonathan Kirshner, ed., Monetary Orders.
20. Since New Zealand adopted an explicit inflation targeting policy in 1989, many other established central banks have followed its lead, including the ECB and the central banks of Australia, Canada, Korea, Israel, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. All of these banks have targets set at 3 percent or less.
21. Joseph Stiglitz, "Central Banking in a Democratic Society," 217.
22. Sheri Berman and Kathleen McNamara, "Bank on Democracy."
23. Adam Posen, "Declarations Are Not Enough: Financial Sector Sources of Central Bank Independence," NBER Macroeconomics Annual (Cambridge: MIT University Press, 1995).
24. Bernd Hayo, "Inflation Culture, Central Bank Independence, and Price Stability," European Journal of Political Economy 14 (May 1998): 241-63.
25. John R. Freeman, "Competing Commitments: Technocracy and Democracy in the Design of Monetary Institutions," International Organization 56 (October 2002): 890-91.
26. Simone Polillo and Mauro F. Guillén, "Globalization Pressures and the State: The Worldwide Spread of Central Bank Independence," American Journal of Sociology 110 (May 2005): 1764-1802.
27. Alex Cukierman, et al., "Central Bank Reform, Liberalization and Inflation in Transition Economies - An International Perspective," Journal of Monetary Economics 49 (March 2002): 237-64.
28. Juliet Johnson, "Two-Track Diffusion and Central Bank Embeddedness: The Politics of Euro Adoption in Hungary and the Czech Republic," Review of International Political Economy (forthcoming 2006).