削弱中央银行独立性的宏观经济后果：来自行长过渡的证据（英）

The MacroeconomicConsequences ofUndermining CentralBank Independence: Evidence from Governor Transitions Marijn A. Bolhuis, Rui C. Mano and Hedda Thorell WP/26/40 IMF Working Papersdescribe research inprogress by the author(s) and are published toelicit comments and to encourage debate.The views expressed in IMF Working Papers arethose of the author(s) and do not necessarilyrepresent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board,or IMF management. 2026MAR IMF Working Paper Research Department The Macroeconomic Consequences of Undermining Central Bank Independence:Evidence from Governor TransitionsPrepared by Marijn A. Bolhuis, Rui C. Mano and Hedda Thorell* Authorized for distribution by Deniz IganMarch 2026 IMF Working Papersdescribe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicitcomments and to encourage debate.The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of theauthor(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management. ABSTRACT:This paper studies the macroeconomic consequences of undermining central bank independence throughpolitically motivated transitions of central bank governors. Leveraging a new panel dataset covering 132 central bankgovernor transitions in 28 advanced and emerging market economies since 2000, we document the timing, frequency,and political drivers of these leadership changes. Tenures of governors with politically motivated appointments areassociated with higher and more volatile inflation, realized and expected. Professional forecasters also tend to expectsuch governors to be more dovish when responding to shifts in inflation. Using local projections in a difference-in-difference setting, we find that following the announcement of a politically motivated governor transition nominal and realshort rates decline and expected and realized inflation rise. At the same time, GDP growth increases in the aftermath ofsuch transitions, consistent with an expansionary short-run macroeconomic impulse. These effects are more pronouncedwhen the incoming governor professes unorthodox views on monetary policy, suggesting that political interference incentral bank leadership induces a temporary growth–inflation trade-off. Long-term inflation expectations only rise in thecase of unorthodox governors with politically motivated appointments, suggesting costs to central bank credibility aremuch more pronounced in those cases. 1.Introduction Central bank independence has emerged as one of the pillars of modern macroeconomicpolicy frameworks. In both advanced economies and emerging markets, the legal auton-omy of monetary policymakers has increased markedly over the last decades [Crowe andMeade, 2007, Romelli, 2024, Garriga, 2025].Proponents of central bank independenceargue that insulation from short-term political pressures allows central banks to anchorinflation expectations more firmly, reduce the inflationary bias that arises from time-inconsistent policy, and thereby foster more stable growth and financial stability [Fischer,1995, Blinder, 2000, Nakamura et al., 2025].1Yet in recent years, high-profile episodes ofpolitical pressure on central banks have reignited concerns that formal,de juresafeguardscan be circumvented in practice. What are the macroeconomic consequences of under-mining central bank independence? While there exists a well-established theoretical literature on the channels throughwhichcompromised independence can impair macroeconomic outcomes,well-identified empirical evidence quantifying these costs remains scarce. Thus far, a key lim-itation lies in obtaining exogenous variation in threats to autonomy. A common empir-ical approach relies on cross-sectional comparisons or panel regressions using de jureindices of central bank independence [e.g., Grilli et al., 1991, Alesina and Summers, 1993,Eijffinger et al., 1998, Acemoglu et al., 2008, Klomp and De Haan, 2010]. But since de juremeasures are largely time-invariant within countries, they offer limited within-countryvariation and force reliance on between-country variation that conflates institutional de-sign with unobserved cultural, political, and economic factors that drive macroeconomicoutcomes. And even when de jure independence indices change frequently within coun-tries, revisions to legal instruments often mask more immediate, informal changes in op-erational autonomy. These limitations underscore the need for an identification strategythat captures exogenous shocks to operational autonomy. This paper seeks to fill that gapby exploiting a novel cross-country dataset of central bank governor transitions to assessthe causal fallout from political pressures to central bank policy. Our approach needs to overcome two main empirical challenges. The first is to identifythreats to central bank independence in our dataset of governor transitions. We collectannouncement dates of exits and appointments and consult biographies and newspaperarticles reporti