Calibrating central banks’ mandate: central banking objectives, tasks, and measures within unitary and federal constitutional settings

Abstract

In a context of institutional flexibility and political necessity, central banks’ responses to the recent crises modelled the scope of their mandate, in law and in action. The current mandates of the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve System, the Bank of Canada, and of the Bank of England are examined in their constitutional, statutory, and/or legal sources. This inquiry is complemented with recent policy statements and institutional discourse to interpret the mandate of those central banks in action and their underpinning objectives, tasks, and measures, during and in the aftermath of the crises. The central banks’ mandate is furthermore contextualised within the examined central banks’ organisational structure and the constitutional settings of the EU and of the states in which the central banks are embedded.