Dataset · Ana Carolina Garriga
Central Bank Independence Index
54 years, 1970–2023 · 191 countries · 2 measures
The Central Bank Independence Index reads each country’s central bank law and scores how far it shields the bank from the government, from 0 to 1. Coded by Ana Carolina Garriga at the University of Essex on the standard Cukierman–Webb–Neyapti scheme, it covers nearly every country back to 1970.
This site holds every year from 1970 to 2023, read from Ana Carolina Garriga’s own data and stored exactly as published.
Central Bank Independence Index · the file
- Newest
- Central Bank Independence Index, 2023
- Held
- 54 years · 8,490 rows
- Licence
- Public domain or CC0
0154 years
Every year
Newest first. Each opens the full table for that year, and each downloads as a CSV.
| Year | Countries | Change | Read | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Central Bank Independence Index, 2023Newest | 191 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Central Bank Independence Index, 2022 | 191 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Central Bank Independence Index, 2021 | 191 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Central Bank Independence Index, 2020 | 191 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Central Bank Independence Index, 2019 | 191 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Central Bank Independence Index, 2018 | 191 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Central Bank Independence Index, 2017 | 191 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Central Bank Independence Index, 2016 | 191 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Central Bank Independence Index, 2015 | 191 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Central Bank Independence Index, 2014 | 191 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Central Bank Independence Index, 2013 | 191 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Central Bank Independence Index, 2012 | 191 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
Show all 54 years
Every year in one file, one row per country per year: central-bank-independence-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv
024 columns
What’s in the file
Every column, what it holds, how it is stored and what its values look like — what a reader needs before opening the file.
| Column | What it holds | Stored as | Range, 2023 | Distinct | Empty | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CountrycountryName | The country’s name, as this file spells it. | Text | — | 191 | 0 | |
ISO Codecountry_codeIdentifier | The ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code, added by this site. Every table here joins on it. | Text · 3 letters | — | 191 | 0 | |
CBI, unweighted (0–1)cbi_unweightedHeadline | The headline figure: CBI index (0–1, where 1 is the most statutory independence). | Number · up to 3 decimals | 0.006 | 131 | 0 | |
CBI, weighted (0–1)cbi_weightedMeasure | Same statutory independence reading with its components weighted on the Cukierman–Webb–Neyapti scheme, from 0 to 1, where 1 is the most independence. | Number · up to 3 decimals | 0.011 | 140 | 0 |
Profiled from the newest file. Range: the lowest and highest value, with the country holding it when only one does. Spread: countries in ten equal steps from lowest to highest. Neither end is better. The values describe a shape, not a score.
03191 countries across every year
Who is covered
How many countries each year holds, continent by continent, who joined and who left, and which places this site covers that the dataset never has.
| 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Africa | 54 | 54 | 54 | 54 | 54 | 54 | 54 | 54 | 54 | 54 | 54 | 54 |
| Americas | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 |
| Asia | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 |
| Europe | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 |
| Oceania | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| All | 191 | 191 | 191 | 191 | 191 | 191 | 191 | 191 | 191 | 191 | 191 | 191 |
The newest 12 of 54 years.
Who joined and who left
Not in this dataset · 34 places this site covers
Ana Carolina Garriga gives no figure for these in any year held here. It is the publisher’s choice of scope, and each place’s profile shows what is measured.
04Provenance
Where it comes from
The path from the publisher to this page, and what was checked and changed on the way.
1 · Publisher
Ana Carolina Garriga, University of Essex
2 · Their file
Central Bank Independence Index 2023
3 · Read by this site
September 26, 2026
Imported by a script that parses each figure and writes it down unrounded.4 · Stored as
54 files, one per year
Each downloads as a CSV, or every year together as central-bank-independence-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv5 · Used on
Its statistic page, and every profile it measures
Precision
The headline is stored to 3 decimals, as published.
Rounded by this site
Never. Tables on screen may show fewer decimals; the files never do.
Changed by this site
Reshaped into one row per country: regional and income-group totals are left out, only the columns listed are kept, each row gets its ISO 3166 code, and some country names are brought to one spelling. No value is recalculated, rescaled or rounded.
From the author’s own Harvard Dataverse deposit. Only her two index columns are republished — the unweighted headline and the weighted variant beside it; the deposit’s merged economic and political series belong to other publishers and are left out.
05Reuse
Licence and credit
What the publisher’s licence lets you do, what it asks of you, and a credit line and citation ready to copy.
Licence · checked September 26, 2026
- Share and redistribute it
- Adapt it and build on it
- Use it commercially
No conditions at all. Crediting the publisher is still the courteous thing to do.
A credit line
Source: Ana Carolina Garriga, University of Essex, Central Bank Independence Index, via Nations Inquiry.
Cite this dataset
Ana Carolina Garriga, University of Essex. Central Bank Independence Index, 1970–2023 [data set]. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/central-bank-independence
The publisher’s own citation: Garriga, Ana Carolina (2025). "Revisiting Central Bank Independence in the World: An Extended Dataset." International Studies Quarterly 69(2), sqaf024. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf024. Data: Harvard Dataverse, doi:10.7910/DVN/NWUUEY, version 1.0.
Plain-language summary, not legal advice. The licence text is what binds.
06Questions
Central Bank Independence Index: questions and answers
What is the Central Bank Independence Index?
The Central Bank Independence Index reads each country’s central bank law and scores how far it shields the bank from the government, from 0 to 1. Coded by Ana Carolina Garriga at the University of Essex on the standard Cukierman–Webb–Neyapti scheme, it covers nearly every country back to 1970.
Which years of the Central Bank Independence Index can I download?
All 54, from 1970 to 2023, each as a CSV file, or every year together in one CSV.
Does Ana Carolina Garriga rank countries on it?
No, and this site does not order it either. The files hold values only.
Can I use it commercially?
Yes, under CC0 1.0, with credit to Ana Carolina Garriga. The licence text is linked on this page.