But it’s not just about formal independence. Board members also need to be independent thinkers. Only then can they form their own opinions and exert their own judgement. Even though boards must take decisions as one and stand for them as one, each member must be able to defend their own view in discussions.
To borrow from T. Padoa-Schioppa, monetary policy is mandated to focus on stability rather than equity or efficiency.2 In the given framework, the distributional consequences of monetary policy are temporary, unintended, with a view to safeguarding price stability.