The late Prof. Albert Hirschman thrived on analysing paradoxes and that was his forte. His works hence make for a fascinating reading as it tells you one can never be sure about any situation. There are contradictions everywhere.
And what paradoxical times we are living in and nothing better to see it from central banking perspective which is just about figuring paradoxes. So on one hand we are talking about fighting for central bank independence (which is getting abused in many a ways) but at the same time we want to restrain central bankers.
- The crisis first saw how central bankers moved into quasi-fiscal policy space,
- then the government pushed central banks into doing a lot more as economies struggled bringing central bank independence into question
- Now as we see this tapering thing, the power of central bankers are coming to the fore,
So how do we manage these two together..how does one put a central banker on board which does justice to the independence but at the same time his/her powers are restrained..
So there are these two articles. First by Marcel Fratzscher , a former head of International Policy Analysis of ECB. Second by Luigi Zingales of U Chicago.
First Fratzscher:
Mostly Economics 
