The importance of operational independence arises because in most countries the central bank is the only public institution which has a mandate to promote price stability. A central bank which does not have operational independence would risk having its monetary policy influenced by other institutions or persons with objectives other than price stability, which would obviously weaken the central bank’s ability to control inflation.
On a micro level, differences in the regulatory regimes of the biotechnology industry in Europe and the United States have been cited as playing an important role in explaining why US firms are ahead of European firms in important measures of innovation such as R&D expenditures and patents.