authority to decide on norway ’ s monetary system and institutions under the union with sweden. norges bank is thus celebrating its 200 - year anniversary in 2016 and has announced ambitious targets for its bicentenary project. in 2016 we want to see that this project has produced three high quality books on the history of norges bank 1816 - 2016, the monetary history of norway 1816 - 2016 and on selected topics in central banking in an international historical perspective. the aim of the workshop is to bring together international experts from central banks and academia for informal discussions and an exchange on topics related to the writing of central bank and monetary history. we expect discussions to be active and lively and we want this workshop to kick - start research activities in these important areas. i want to thank the graduate institute here in geneva and professor marc flandreau in particular for their hospitality and for allowing us to spend almost two days discussing research in central bank and monetary history. previous books about the history of norges bank have been written in norwegian, and predominantly by previous central bank governors. but “ the times they are a - changin ”, to phrase bob dylan ( dylan, 1964 ), 1 and today we believe that best practice in writing central bank and monetary history is achieved by contributions from professional academic experts in relevant areas. the research should be brought up to international quality standards through the usual peer review process. and, once it is recognized that there is only one central bank in each country, it is also clear that a strong international perspective on central bank history and monetary history is needed in order to trace the origin of ideas and how monetary policy views and practices have developed over time as well as across different countries. the key responsibilities of central banks are to promote price stability and financial stability. this fall, policy makers around the world have struggled to implement policy measures to bring the international financial markets back into a more normal mode of operation. in this pursuit we are constantly reminded of the importance of having a solid understanding of economic history and developments as a backdrop to designing the right policy for the current situation. this fall, international experts like you are in greater demand than ever to help bring about this level of understanding, and many of you appear frequently in debates on these issues in policy workshops and conferences as well as in the media. against this backdrop we see this workshop as one of many arenas where policy makers and academic experts can exchange ideas and views on what has been characterized as the most serious financial crisis since the great depression in the

. this room for discretion was used to take domestic considerations into account. this extra room for manoeuvring, however, was only available to the bank as long as its commitment to defend the gold standard was not called into question. was this a preview of today ’ s modern inflation targeting regime? as long as inflation expectations are well anchored, more weight can be given to developments in the real economy. the independence of norges bank was de facto substantially reduced after wwii. the legitimacy of the bank and confidence in the bank had been seriously undermined during the interwar period and during wwii. the government tried on several occasions in the first decade after wwii to turn norges bank into a subordinated agency. if the history of norges bank was written in a vacuum with no international references, one might have thought that this was unique for norway. not so, similar developments were observed in many countries who previously subscribed to the gold standard. political control over central banks was tightened in many countries with one notable exception, the bundesbank in west germany which was established as the most independent central bank in the post - wwii period ( sejersted, 1994 ). 3 norges bank was in fact not as dependent as believed. the truth may lie somewhere in between. recent research on the role of norges bank during the first decade after wwii ( ecklund, 2008 ) 4 suggests that norges bank maintained a relatively high degree of operational independence in this period. norges bank ’ s independence was gradually restored. in 1986 norges bank was granted instrument autonomy and started to set short - term interest rates to sustain the prevailing fixed exchange rate regime. the current inflation targeting regime was introduced in march 2001 and norges bank now sets short - term interest rates aimed at keeping inflation around 2. 5 % over time. greater independence demands adequate accountability. along with greater degree of autonomy and independence norges bank has become more open and transparent in its monetary policy communication. increased openness by norges bank is not only a way of achieving accountability to its constituents, but is also instrumental to enhance policy effectiveness. this stands in stark contrast with the mystique and opaqueness which characterized earlier central bank communication. for a long time central banks have focused predominantly on their interest rate policy. considerably less attention has been devoted to their liquidity policy which used to be carried out somewhere in the basement of the monetary policy temple, far away from the spotlight of the announcement of interest rate decisions. this