The European Central Bank: Independence, accountability and strategy: A review

This paper reviews research on central banking and monetary policy, with special emphasis on the position of the future European Central Bank. Nowadays, it is often thought that an independent central bank with an explicit mandate to aim for price stability constitutes an important institutional device to assure price stability. Indeed, the ECB will be one of the most independent central banks as follows from the codings of various indicators measuring legal independence. Still, it does not follow straightforwardly from the literature that the Statute of the ECB is optimal. It is also argued that the accountability of the ECB is poorly arranged for in comparison with that of several national central banks. Finally, the discussion about the monetary strategy of the ECB is reviewed.