Question 3: More generally, do you agree that it is desirable to maintain central bank independence? Again focus on the near future, say next 48 months.
It is definitely desirable to maintain central bank independence, provided that its purpose is to best achieve democratically determined objectives of monetary policy. But then central bank independence must be combined with strong accountability to achieve those objectives.
Question 2: Do you agree that the traditional argument that less central bank independence leads to higher inflation will (still) be relevant over the next 48 months in Western economies?
Historically, external pressure on central banks has mostly been pressure to accept higher inflation than the inflation target. More recently, there has been cases of external pressure to accept lower inflation than the target, for instance in the Eurozone and in Sweden. Therefore, it seems that pressure to deviate from the inflation target may be in either direction, not necessarily always to exceed the target.
In order for central bank independence to be consistent with democracy, the purpose of central bank independence must be to best achieve democratically determined objectives of monetary policy. Importantly, central bank independence should not allow central banks to deviate from those objectives, as for instance the Riksbank did when it strongly tightened monetary policy and "leaned against the wind" during 2010-2013.
Therefore, central bank independence must be accompanied by sufficient central bank accountability to achieve the democratically determined objectives of monetary policy.
One has to distinguish de jure and de facto central bank independence. I do not think de jure independence will decline in the next four years in the Eurozone and the UK. However, political pressure on central bank policy may increase, and that may marginally affect central bank policy, so in that sense de facto independence may decline somewhat.
The CFM surveys informs the public about the views held by prominent economists based in Europe on important macroeconomic and public policy questions. Some surveys focus specifically on the UK economy (as the CFM is a UK research centre), but surveys can in principle focus on any macroeconomic question for any region. The surveys shed light on the extent to which there is agreement or disagreement among these experts. An important motivation for the survey is to give a more comprehensive overview of the beliefs held by economists and in particular to include the views of those economists whose opinions are not frequently heard in public debates.
Questions mainly focus on macroeconomic and public policy topics. Although there are some questions that focus specifically on the UK economy, the setup of the survey is much broader and considers questions related to other countries/regions and also considers questions not tied to a specific economy.
The surveys are done in collaboration with the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
The Future of Central Bank Independence
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Question 3: More generally, do you agree that it is desirable to maintain central bank independence? Again focus on the near future, say next 48 months.
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Question 2: Do you agree that the traditional argument that less central bank independence leads to higher inflation will (still) be relevant over the next 48 months in Western economies?
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Question 1: Do you agree that central bank independence in the Eurozone and the UK will decline over the next 48 months?
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German Council of Economic Experts' view of ECB policy
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Question 2: Do you agree that the ECB's monetary policy masks structural problems of member states?
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Question 1: Do you agree that exceptionally loose monetary policy by the European Central Bank is no longer appropriate?
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