Governance und Unabhängigkeit von Nationalbanken: das Beispiel der Schweizerischen Nationalbank

We argue that there is a natural trade-off between the independence and the accountability of a central bank. Economist's emphasis on the independence aspect has contributed to creating situations, where the central banks' accountability is largely deficient. Attempts to resolve this issue by giving the central bank a clear legal mandate are no solution. A central bank with insufficient accountability can violate its legal mandate. We illustrate this by comparing the lagela rules defining the Swiss central bank's profit distribution with its actual behaviour over the last 3 decades.central bank; independence; accountability; profit distribution