Reconsidering Central Bank Independence

Stan du Plessis is Professor of Macroeconomics at Stellenbosch University where he is Chief Operating Officer and formerly a Dean. This Past President of the Economic Society of South Africa studied at the Universities of Cambridge, Stellenbosch and the Wharton Business School and is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. Andreas Freytag is Professor of Economics at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, where he heads the Schumpeter Center for Research on Socio-Economic Change (JSEC), and Honorary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch. He is associated to many international education organisations and think tanks. Dr. Dawie van Lill teaches macroeconomics at the University of Stellenbosch. His research spans time series methods and machine learning, with a particular interest in monetary policy. Recently, he's been exploring the development of macroeconomic models to assess the distributional effects of government policies.

Part I. The Theoretical Foundations: 1. History of Central Banking; 2. Focus on Inflation: The Rationale for Central Bank Independence since Ancient Days; 3. The Political Economy of CBI; Part II. Balance Sheet Operations in Different Times and CBI: 4. Central Banks and the Great Moderation; 5. Monetary Policy Response to the Financial Crisis; 6. Balance sheet policies and CBI; Part III. The Political Economy of CBI in the Real Economy: 7. Fiscal Needs and Low Interest Rates Policy in an Olsonian Setting; 8. Are Central Banks Too Independent? CBI and Democracy after the Crises; 9. The Future of Central Bank Independence.