Central Bank Independence Before and After the Financial Crisis

The Great Recession has significantly questioned the role of central banks in conducting monetary policy independently of politics. In fact, unconventional measures (balance-sheet policies) have narrowed the difference between monetary policy and fiscal policy, making monetary policy quasi-fiscal in their nature. The project aims to asses, mainly studying the ECB experience from 2000 to 2018, whether the border between monetary and fiscal policies has been breached, thereby making the monetarist concept of central bank independence completely irrelevant in time of severe financial crises.