Although formally not benefiting from a constitutional status of independence, the Bank of Italy had a crucial role, in the 1970s and 1980s, in shaping economic policies in a country afflicted by intensifying imbalances and difficulties. After a decade of stagflation, even the ephemeral economic revival experienced throughout the 1980s was achieved at a price, mostly through the spiralling public debt, which eventually dramatically struck her monetary stability, forcing Italy to exit from the European Monetary System (EMS) in September 1992. Such a critical role changed during these decades in terms of relevance and direction, particularly when compared to the Bank of Italy’s political counterparts, its governments and parliament, whose decision-making processes often relied upon technical competences which were lacking. The way economists at the Bank developed their influence vis-à-vis political-sphere decisions relating to European monetary integration is a telling tale to this regard. Actually, a group of economists at its research department had acquired prominence since the mid-1970s, partly because of the essential role assigned to economic and statistical research by governor Guido Carli during the previous decade, when, fostering technical competences within the organisation of the Bank, he reshaped the Bank in order to have an up-to-date central bank. Pivotal to Carli’s central banking style were reliable data and analysis to manage monetary aggregates and steer a banking system which wa…