Over time, they gradually acquired a more prominent role. But it was only with the high inflation that the world experienced from the late 1960s to the 1980s, that an academic debate was sparked on the merits of granting central banks independent monetary policy to achieve price stability. The case for central bank independence which was then developed is straightforward.
It builds on the concept of “inflation bias” developed by Kydland and Prescott (1977)10 and Barro and Gordon (1983a, b)11 . Let me recall it in a few lines.