Central banking, democratic governance and political authority: the case of Brazil in a comparative perspective

ABSTRACT By examining the relationship between democratic governance and monetary authority this paper accomplishes two principal tasks. First, it justifies placing the study of monetary authority as a central item on the research agenda of political scientists. Beginning from the premise central banks constitute a special mode of political authority, we examine trade-offs between questions of transparency, democratic accountability, and public sector efficiency. Second, by conducting an empirical study of monetary authority for the Brazilian case, the paper inverts a commonly held assumption within the study of central banks. Rather than argue price stability follows from an autonomous central bank, the Brazilian case demonstrate nearly the opposite can take place.