The last decades have shown a tendency towards higher central bank transparency. It became customary for central bankers to explain their monetary policy decisions in detail and for them to publish inflation forecasts. This leads to the question of how central bank transparency is entangled with...

The extraordinary measures taken by the ECB to combat the financial crisis have led many observers to question whether the bank has put its independence at risk. The bank’s vow to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro has added a second (and potentially contradictory) goal alongside its...