"The worst economic downturn in 70 years has failed to change the behavior of central bankers. Recent decisions to maintain inflation rate targets at the expense of employment and output only highlight the need to hold central bankers more accountable for how they manage the economy.
The worst part of this story is that these fundamental decisions about economic policy are made by a small, secretive clique operating largely outside of the public's purview. Central bank decisions on interest rates are likely to have far more impact on jobs and growth than any of the policies that are debated endlessly be elected parliaments. Yet, these decisions are made largely without democratic input.
In fairness, politicians bear much of the blame for this situation. They established institutional structures that largely place central banks beyond democratic control. There is probably no bank that is as insulated from the democratic process as the ECB, in large part because of its multinational structure, but all the central banks in wealthy countries now enjoy an extraordinary degree of independence from elected governments. In many countries they are even more independent than the judicial system".............read more here
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