Central bankers without clothes and clout

Emperor's New Clothes
The Emperor’s New Clothes, illustration by French cartoonist Georges DeLaw
Koninklijke Bibliotheek

In Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, the emperor walks around town almost naked. Nobody dares say so. It takes a child to reveal that the emperor’s clothing is all pretense.

On a good day, a change in monetary policy rates of 10 basis points will lift GDP less than 0.1 percentage points a year down the road, and inflation a similar 0.1 percentage points after four years. This would barely be visible in economic statistics published with one decimal.

What then, about

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