John H. Cochrane (Hoover Institution), Adam S. Posen (PIIE), and David Wilcox (PIIE), editors
Central bank independence in practice is a very high stakes issue. It has recently become a salient issue politically as well in the United States—the latest recurrence of historical debates over the power and legitimacy of a central bank here. And, as with some other newly controversial policy regimes once taken for granted—like vaccinations or combating climate change, where there was an intellectually solid scientific or technocratic agreement—there suddenly is a lot of controversy. I believe that part of the reason for this public doubt is broader social and political forces opposed to authority by expertise. This goes beyond the economic realm but is fueled for the Federal Reserve in part by the justified perceptions of massive economic policy failures in recent years, including the North Atlantic financial crisis of 2008–2012 and the inflation surge accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020–2021.
Πηγή:Peterson Institute for International Economics