Reviewing three of these studies will help to better understand the meaning and sources of central bank independence and perhaps provide at least some insights into how the Federal Reserve ranks relative to other central banks in terms of independence.
Bade and Parkin (1988) ranked the political independence of twelve industrial country central banks on the basis of answers to questions such as Is the bank the final policy authority? and Is there no government official (with or without voting power) on the bank board?