Christopher Adolph is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Statistics at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he is also a core member of the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences. He is a former Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research and won the American Political Science Association's Mancur Olson Award for the best dissertation in political economy. His research on comparative political economy and quantitative methods has appeared in the American Political Science Review, Political Analysis, Social Science and Medicine and other academic journals.

'Adolph has written a timely book for students of monetary policy, central banking, and comparative political economy. The main messages are accessible to a wide audience and have implications not only for economics, but also for law and sociology.' Anne-Caroline Hüser, International Journal of Constitutional Law

• 1. Agents, institutions, and the political economy of performance; 2. Career theories of monetary policy; 3. Careers and inflation in industrial democracies; 4. Careers and the monetary policy process; 5. Careers and inflation in developing countries; 6. The uses of autonomy: what independence really means; 7. Partisan governments, labor unions, and monetary policy; 8. The politics of central banker appointment; 9. The politics of central banker tenure; 10. Conclusion: the dilemma of discretion.

Christopher Adolph is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Statistics at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he is also a core member of the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences. He is a former Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research and won the American Political Science Association's Mancur Olson Award for the best dissertation in political economy. His research on comparative political economy and quantitative methods has appeared in the American Political Science Review, Political Analysis, Social Science and Medicine and other academic journals.

'Adolph has written a timely book for students of monetary policy, central banking, and comparative political economy. The main messages are accessible to a wide audience and have implications not only for economics, but also for law and sociology.' Anne-Caroline Hüser, International Journal of Constitutional Law

• 1. Agents, institutions, and the political economy of performance; 2. Career theories of monetary policy; 3. Careers and inflation in industrial democracies; 4. Careers and the monetary policy process; 5. Careers and inflation in developing countries; 6. The uses of autonomy: what independence really means; 7. Partisan governments, labor unions, and monetary policy; 8. The politics of central banker appointment; 9. The politics of central banker tenure; 10. Conclusion: the dilemma of discretion.