As with many monetary policy frameworks, inflation targeting is subject to the well-known problem of inflation bias. With inflation targeting, however, the bias becomes apparent not as inflation above desired levels, but as a wedge between the announced target and observed inflation. This...

The main objective of this paper is to identify a set of leading indicators of inflation for the United Kingdom, and discuss the conceptual issues pertaining to inflation targeting. The main conclusions are that narrow money has strong leading indicator properties for inflation, while broad...

The paper considers the merits of rules and discretion for monetary policy when the structure of the macroeconomic model and the probability distributions of disturbances are not well defined. It is argued that when it is costly to delay policy reactions to seldom-experienced shocks until formal...

Bolivia has achieved noteworthy success over the past 15 years in raising incomes, reducing poverty, and maintaining macroeconomic stability by deploying commodity revenues to finance transfers, public investment, and state-led development, using an exchange rate peg as a policy anchor. However,...

The global financial crisis has exposed the limitations of a conventional inflation targeting (IT) framework in insulating an economy from shocks, and demonstrated that its rigid application may aggravate the effect of shocks on output and inflation. Accordingly, we investigate possible...

This paper outlines important lessons for monetary policy. In particular, the role of inflation targeting, which was much acclaimed prior to the financial crisis and since then has not lost much of its endorsement, is critically reviewed. Ignoring the relation between monetary policy and asset...

The paper extends a standard semi-structural model to account for nonlinear and asymmetric effects of monetary policy credibility. In our setting, central bank credibility is proportional to the deviation of inflation expectations from the announced inflation target, with positive deviations...

This paper examines the policy challenges a country faces when it wants to both reduce inflation and maintain a sustainable external position. Mundell's (1962) policy assignment framework suggests that these two goals may be mutually incompatible unless monetary and fiscal policies are properly...

In response to high and chronic inflation, countries have adopted different stabilization policies. However, the extent to which these stabilization programs were designed for political motives is not clear. Since exchange-rate-based stabilizations (ERBS) create an initial consumption boom...