The financial crisis in the advanced countries that began in 2007 has led central bankers to adopt unconventional policy measures as policy interest rates neared the zero bound. One suggestion (Blanchard, Dell'Ariccia, and Mauro, 2010) has been to raise inflation targets to provide more room for...

This paper applies a state-space approach to estimate the implicit inflation target of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) since the adoption of the Inflation Targeting (IT) framework. The paper's findings are two. First, although the official inflation target range is 3.6 percent, in...

We propose a new approach to test the full-information rational expectations hypothesis which can identify whether rejections of the null arise from information rigidities. This approach quantifies the economic significance of departures from the null and the underlying degree of information...

In a first attempt to treat inflation targeting (IT) as a continuous variable, we construct IT subindices for 21 full-fledged ITers on three dimensions: flexibility, transparency, and explicitness. Comparing flexibility and transparency we find that (1) the impact of flexibility on both the mean...

This is the fourth chapter of a forthcoming monograph entitled ""On Implementing Full-Fledged Inflation- Targeting Regimes: Saying What You Do and Doing What You Say."" It examines a number of issues related to transparency and accountability in an inflation-targeting regime. It first looks at...

Inflation-targeting central banks have a respectable track record at explaining their policy actions and corresponding inflation outturns. Using a simple forward-looking policy rule and an assessment of inflation reports, we provide a new methodology for the empirical evaluation of consistency...

This paper presents a model for Inflation Targeting under imperfect policy credibility. It modifies the conventional model in three ways: an endogenous policy credibility process, by which monetary policy can gain or lose credibility over time; non-linearities in the inflation equation and in the...

After a long period of global price stability, in 2008 inflation increased sharply following unprecedented increases in the price of oil and other commodities, notably food. Although inflation remained lower and growth higher in inflation targeting countries than elsewhere, almost everywhere...

This is the second chapter of a forthcoming monograph entitled ""On Implementing Full-Fledged Inflation-Targeting Regimes: Saying What You Do and Doing What You Say."" We begin by discussing the costs of inflation, including their role in generating boom-bust cycles. Following a general...

This is the third chapter of a forthcoming monograph entitled ""On Implementing Full-Fledged Inflation-Targeting Regimes: Saying What You Do and Doing What You Say."" It examines a number of elements in the design of an inflation-targeting framework. These include the definition of the target...