Indipendenza della Banca Centrale e Democrazia: una Contraddizione Apparente

Since Rogoff theorised it, central bank independence has been analysed almost exclusively with the tools of economic science, leading some economists to highlight a contradiction between independence and democracy. Recent contributions introducing political science tools have proposed a rationalisation of monetary conduct in which this contradiction does not hold. This article reviews this literature whose implicit positions on the neutrality of monetary policy are made explicit. In short, central bank institutional reforms should take into consideration other criteria apart from economic tools; the role of economic science is to provide a clear perspective of the current state of knowledge on the neutrality of monetary policy.