ABSTRACT
The European sovereign debt crisis has highlighted a fault line between German and French politicians and board members of the ECB. In this chapter we argue that this fault line is rooted in cultural differences between Germany and France. This position is based on previous research on the relation between central bank independence and national culture and the construction of cognitive maps of a French (Jean-Claude Trichet) and German (Axel Weber) member of the ECB’s board. Consequently, although a European wide agreement on the ECB’s independence has been reached, national cultural differences still play an important role in board members’ preferences and the ECB policy. As such, this chapter provides another illustration of how the cultural turn in economics helps to understand financial affairs. Moreover, it develops a new methodological approach to operationalize dimensions of culture in the process.
