Over the past few years, there have been repeated calls for the Eurosystem to publish the minutes of its meetings because this is often seen as a means to enhance transparency. I would like to emphasise here that the market responses to published minutes in the United States and the United Kingdom result mainly from the timeliness with which this information is provided.
The historical evolution of central bank independence Support for the idea of central bank independence has evolved over time. In the United States and many other countries, the historically high and volatile inflation rates in the 1970s and early 1980s prompted a reexamination of monetary policies and central bank practices.