Central bankers once resembled old-fashioned soothsayers. Secretiveness was deemed so essential to their craft that their policy tools were kept under wraps, important decisions were only sketchily explained to outsiders and the primary means of public communication were pronouncements celebrated less for their clarity than for enigmatic obscurity.
In Canada, as in many other countries, the era of priest-like privilege is now long gone. These days, the Bank of Canada conducts policy with transparent methods and fixed rules that allow average Canadians to follow its decision making in ways that were unthinkable just a few decades ago. It is to this broad audience of interested Canadians that David Laidler and William Robson direct their treatment of the Bank of Canada’s self-generated transformation, with a focus on the formal inflation targets that were adopted during the early 1990s.
The authors are on close terms with bank staff. (Laidler even served for...
Mark Lovewell has held various senior roles at Ryerson University. He is also one of the magazine’s contributing editors.
Advertisement
Advertisement