Does Central Bank Independence Need Inflation Targeting?

Two articles on today’s Financial Times  puzzle me. The first (Weidmann warns of currency war risk) offers yet another example of how economic analysis sometimes leaves the way to ideological beliefs. The Bundesbank’s president argues (as he already did in the past) that giving up inflation targeting hampers central bank independence. How? Why? He does not bother explaining.

What I think he has in mind is that once the objective of the central bank goes beyond strict inflation targeting, monetary policy needs an arbitrage between often conflicting objectives (typically unemployment and inflation). It is the essence of the dual mandate. This of course moves monetary policy out of the realm of technocratic choice, and makes it a political institution (Stephen King explains it nicely). I would argue that this is normal once we abandon the ideal-type of frictionless neoclassical economics, and we accept that we may have a tradeoff between inflation and unemployment.  But this is not the issue here. The issue, and the puzzle, is why transforming the choice from technocratic to political, should necessarily lead to giving up independence.

(Bad) Arguments Against Debt Monetization

I think it is useful to list, and assess, the main arguments advanced against an enhanced role of the ECB as a lender/buyer of last resort. I can think of four of them: credibility, inflation, irrelevance, ineffectiveness.

A Sad Day

A few days ago Pierangelo Garegnani passed away. A good summary of his contribution to the debate on economic theory can be found here, and a slightly more technical one here.

He has been my first teacher. It is thanks to him that I understood, very young, that the Keynesian principle of effective demand is not a simple special case of the neoclassical theory. Just a few weeks ago I went back to his 1979 CJE controversy on effective demand with Joan Robinson that is surprisingly actual.

But, above all, he taught me rigour, attention to the internal consistency of an argument, and love for economic theory, meant as a conceptual lens to make sense of a complex reality. I had lost him of sight, for a number of reasons of no interest. But his lesson has been invaluable along all my career, and will continue to be. A Maestro…

It is a sad day.