Inside the Boardroom or Central Bank Autonomy

Inside the Boardroom: How Boards Really Work and the Coming Revolution in Corporate Governance

Author: James Gillies

Distinguished governance experts offer cures for what ails our boards of directors

In light of corporate malfeasance in recent years, the governance of corporations has been receiving great attention from regulators, researchers, shareholders, and directors themselves. Based on Richard Leblanc's in-depth five-year study of 39 boards of directors of both for- and not-for-profit organizations, Building a Better Board goes behind the scenes to reveal the inner workings of boards of directors, including how they make decisions.


Recently chosen as one of Canada's "Top 40 Under 40"(TM), Dr Richard Leblanc is an award-winning teacher and researcher, certified management consultant, professional speaker, professor, lawyer and specialist on boards of directors. He can be reached at . James Gillies, PhD (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), is Professor Emeritus at the Schulich School of Business, York University, where he serves as Chair of the Canada-Russia Corporate Governance Program.

Interesting book: Perfect Drink for Every Occasion or How to Eat around the World

Central Bank Autonomy: The Federal Reserve System in American Politics

Author: J Kevin Corder

Why is the Federal Reserve System so powerful and autonomous? The autonomy of the central bank in the United States is the joint product of strategic choices made by decision makers in the Fed and choices made by members of Congress. Fed decision makers update administrative procedure in ways that frustrate representative control of monetary policy. Members of Congress tolerate experimentation with procedures and rules because Fed independence creates an obstacle for presidents interested in controlling macroeconomic outcomes for electoral or partisan gain. Central bank autonomy is not a serious threat for members of Congress, as they independently develop a number of federal credit programs to counteract the consequences of monetary policy choices for particular sectors of the economy (notably, home construction and small business enterprise).

The transformation of the Federal Reserve System reveals how gradual and incremental institutional changes can affect the strategies of political actors and policy outcomes. This finding challenges the dominant description of institutional change that has informed applied work on political institutions in both international relations and American politics. Conventional descriptions emphasize long periods of institutional stability punctuated by short periods of rapid change. Institutional change at the Fed is a gradual and continuous process. Incremental changes in monetary policy institutions (reserve requirements, open market rules, selective credit regulations) reveal the rich variety of strategic options for bureaucrats who desire autonomy from elected officials and the real effects of changing policy institutions on macroeconomic andcapital market outcomes.

Table of Contents:

	Tables and Figures
	Acknowledgments
	Abbreviations
1	The Puzzle of Central Bank Autonomy	3
2	Central Bank Autonomy and the Preferences of Central Bankers	23
3	Reserve Requirements and the Distribution of Monetary Restraint	45
4	Open Market Transactions: the Scope and Frequency of Capital Market Intervention	71
5	Selective Credit Controls and Credit Allocation	99
6	Macroeconomic Outcomes and Monetary Policy Institutions	125
7	Capital Market Flows and Federal Credit Institutions	157
8	Representative Control of Monetary Policy	171
	References	187
	Index	197