Inflation targeting did not prevent financial instability before the Crisis nor did it provide sufficient stimulus after the Crisis. In a new Vox eBook, 14 world-renowned scholars, practitioners and market participants analyse inflation targeting and its future. They argue that inflation targeting should be refined not replaced. Indeed, it is needed now more than ever to keep expectations anchored while the advanced economies work their way through today’s slow growth, rickety banks, and over-indebted public sectors.

Two key building principles of the Eurozone were that the ECB should be insulated from political interference and prevented from the funding of government deficits. This essay explains how the Eurozone crisis has threatened these principles and suggest ways to restore them.

Central bank independence can have marvellous effects on inflation, but not always. This column reviews evidence of a U-shaped interaction between policy reform and general political institutions; independence can be undermined in nations with poor political institutions, while it is less necessary in nations with excellent institutions. A ‘seesaw’ effect is also identified whereby fiscal policy deteriorates following central bank independence.

The US Federal Reserve has used unorthodox policy instruments to reduce recent financial turmoil. In this column, the author of CEPR Policy Insight 23 argues that the crisis raises more fundamental questions about core tenets of modern monetary orthodoxy – inflation targeting and central bank independence.

The nature of central banking and monetary policy formulation has changed radically over the past two decades. The revolution was driven by the interaction of monetary policy failures and theoretical developments.