Unexpected revolutionaries: how central banks made and unmade economic orthodoxy : How Central Banks Made and Unmade Economic Orthodoxy

In 'Unexpected Revolutionaries', Manuela Moschella investigates the institutional transformation of central banks from the 1970s to the present.

Central banks are typically regarded as conservative, politically neutral institutions that uphold conventional macroeconomic wisdom.

Yet in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2020 Covid-19 crisis, central banks have upended observer expectations by implementing largely unknown and unconventional monetary policies.

Far from abiding by well-established policy playbooks, central banks now engage in practices such as providing liquidity support for a wide range of financial institutions and quantitative easing, and have even stretched the remit of monetary policy into issues such as inequality and climate change.

Moschella argues that the political nature of central banks lies at the heart of these transformations.