Has Inflation Targeting Improved Monetary Policy? Evaluating Policy Effectiveness in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand

The degree to which explicit inflation targets contribute to the success of price stabilization policies has not been conclusively established. To assess the impact of announced inflation targets on the effectiveness of monetary policy, we construct indicators of inflation pressure that allow us to characterize the impact and effectiveness of monetary policy quantitatively. We examine the records of three inflation targeting economies, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, and compare them to the US. We find that the inflation targeting countries have substantially lower inflation pressure and that inflation targeting reduces the size of interest rate changes needed to moderate inflation.