The issue of whether central banks’ finances affect their policy performance has been relevant for the Czech National Bank, as well as for several other central banks in catching-up economies that have experienced negative equity in the last decade. More recently, this issue has also become topical for advanced economies, as their central banks have increased their financial exposures considerably as a result of anti-crisis measures (Buiter, 2008; Stella, 2009), and some of them – especially the Swiss National Bank in 2010 (see Jordan, 2011) – have already experienced financial losses. The answer to this question is neither easy.
