Resumen

JACOME H, Luis I. LEGAL CENTRAL BANK INDEPENDENCE AND INFLATION IN LATIN AMERICA DURING THE 1990s. Revista de Análisis [online]. 2002, vol.5, n.1, pp. 157-193. ISSN 2304-8875.

The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate. This paper reviews central banks' legal reform in Latin America during the 1990s and discusses the status of central bank independence in the región. Based on this information, it builds a simplified Índex of central bank independence which, in addition to the commonly used criteria of political and economic independence, incorporates provisions of central banks' financial autonomy, accountability, and lender-of-last-resort. The paper finds a modérate negative correlation between increased central bank independence and inflation during 1999-2001 in 14 Latin American countries. Dissagregating the Índex, the same analysis suggests that economic independence is the key component driving the observed negative correlation between legal central bank independence and inflation.

Palabras llave : Central bank independence; inflation; Latin American countries.