The 1970s inflation crisis shaped modern central bank independence. Now it’s under populist threat – podcast

September 29, 2025 - Cristina Bodea

Dr. Bodea published this article and podcast in The Conversation on Sept. 25, 2025. Please see the original article here.https://theconversation.com/the-1970s-inflation-crisis-shaped-modern-central-bank-independence-now-its-under-populist-threat-podcast-265998

For months, Donald Trump has badgered the US Federal Reserve and its chair, Jerome Powell, to lower interest rates. When the governors of the Fed did so by 0.25 percentage points in mid-September to a target of between 4% and 4.25%, it wasn’t big or fast enough for Trump.

The next day, the president asked the US Supreme Court to rule on whether he could fire Lisa Cook, a Fed governor. A federal appeals court had blocked Trump from doing so after he accused her of mortgage fraud, which she denies.

This isn’t the first time a US president has put pressure on the Fed. In the early 1970s, Fed chair Arthur Burns came under sustained pressure from Richard Nixon to lower interest rates ahead of the 1972 presidential election. The Fed did lower rates and high inflation followed, fuelled by the headwinds of high global oil prices.

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, Cristina Bodea, professor of political science at Michigan State University, explains how the inflation spike of the 1970s cemented the case for protecting central banks from day-to-day politics. “There’s not a lot that becomes a global norm for good economic governance,” says Bodea, “but central bank independence became one.”