5 The absence of a well-defined institutional framework made it necessary to adopt complicated logical exercises to argue in favour of the defence of the currency: for Baffi the principle of “no taxation without representation”, violated by inflation insofar as it causes arbitrary redistribution, was the one to call upon to give the central bank the task of defending the currency.
In this “campaign of persuasion” Baffi frequently discussed monetary policy choices in the press. He believed that announcing monetary objectives was a factor of transparency that would have durably altered central banks’ modus operandi. As he was to say later, “the actions of central banks are no longer cloaked in silence, and perhaps never will be again.