al aspects of monetary policy are useful in interpreting these changes. The implications for the design of the European Central Bank are discussed against the background of this research and the experiences [...] the Deutsche Bundesbank or the Fed). Furthermore, and maybe more fundamentally, the institutional designs of many central banks have been changed. These changes have resulted in an increased degree of i [...] changes against the background of the recent theoretical and empirical literature on the institutional design of central banks. It argues that this literature is useful in interpreting the reasons and consequences