Orphanides: governments should rein in ‘immense power’ of central banks

Central banks can dramatically influence the distribution of wealth, economist argues

Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve

The central banks of major economies wield "immense power" via their balance sheets, to the point of being inconsistent with the proper functioning of democracy, Athanasios Orphanides warns in a recent paper.

The MIT-based professor and former governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus argues the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank overstepped the bounds of their legitimacy in their response to recent crises.

By choosing to come to the aid of some companies, or indeed economies, and not others

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