Central banks under stress: Reputation, accountability and regulatory coherence
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12606 |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| Author | Manuela Moschella,Samuel McPhilemy |
SYMPOSIUM INTRODUCTION
Central banks under stress: Reputation,
accountability and regulatory coherence
Samuel McPhilemy
1
| Manuela Moschella
2
1
Centre for the Study of Globalisation and
Regionalisation, University of Warwick,
Coventry, UK
2
Department of Political and Social Sciences,
Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy
Correspondence
Manuela Moschella, Department of Political
and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale
Superiore, Palazzo Strozzi, Piazza degli Strozzi,
50123, Firenze, Italy.
Email: manuela.moschella@sns.it
Funding information
Italian Ministry of Higher Education, Grant/
Award Number: SIR Grant 2014
‘Unconventional Central Banks: Making
Monetary Policy in Hard Times’,
RBSI14KCWY.
Abstract
This symposium homes in on an area of public administra-
tion that has been through a period of significant change in
the last ten years. Since the global financial crisis, central
banks have expanded their operations in financial markets,
buying up vast quantities of assets as part of expansive
monetary policy strategies. They have also played a leading
role in the reform of financial regulation and have been
entrusted with enhanced authority to supervise financial
institutions. This activity has taken place amid heightened
political contestation, with central banks increasingly
viewed as the quintessence of a technocratic mode of gov-
ernance that eschews traditional democratic control. The
purpose of this symposium is to consider how central banks’
reputation, accountability and regulatory roles have chan-
ged since the financial crisis, and what those changes tell us
about the balance of power between independent regula-
tory agencies and elected policy-makers.
1|INTRODUCTION
This symposium homes in on an area of public administration that has been through a period of significant change in
the last ten years. Since the global financial crisis, central banks—particularly those of the advanced industrial
countries—have taken unprecedented steps to shore up their financial systems and boost economic activity. They
have expanded their operations in financial markets, buying up vast quantities of assets as part of expansive mone-
tary policy strategies. They have also played a leading role in the reform of financial regulation and have been
entrusted with enhanced authority to supervise financial institutions. This activity has taken place amid heightened
political contestation, with central banks increasingly viewed as the quintessence of a technocratic mode of gover-
nance that eschews traditional democratic control. The rise of populist parties has further exacerbated this view
(Goodhart and Lastra 2018; Tucker 2018). The purpose of this symposium is to consider how central banks have
Received: 21 February 2019 Revised: 29 April 2019 Accepted: 4 May 2019
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12606
Public Administration. 2019;97:489–498. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 489
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which
permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no
modifications or adaptations are made.
© 2019 The Authors. Public Administration published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Public Administration. 2019;97:489–498. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm 489
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