12 However, event studies tend to find larger international interest rate spillovers for U.S. policy announcements than for those of other central banks. 13 It is also worth emphasizing that asset purchases are merely one form of monetary accommodation, made necessary when policy interest rates hit their zero lower bound.
It is inter alia for this reason, and only in respect of the implementation of measures that may at times prove to be unpopular, that central banks should be given “independence” from governments. To quote once more from what a former Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia once said: “The Reserve Bank must be given all the freedom of the prison exercise yard”.