The de facto autonomy of central banks to use their operating instruments to carry
out monetary policies and to manage their functions (“operational” or “behavioural”
autonomy) and their freedom from requirements to finance government deficits or other
restrictions on their balance sheet choices (“balance sheet autonomy”) are much more
important to their effectiveness. According to the index constructed by Ahsan, Skully,
and Wickramanayake (2008), the central banks of the Philippines and Indonesia enjoy
the greatest de facto autonomy among the Emerging Asian countries (due in part to their
de jure autonomy), while the central banks of China, Thailand and Malaysia are less
autonomous