This paper examines myopic, populist policies that guarantee short-term financial protection of the people from the elite without regard for long-term fiscal or monetary distortions. Assuming that citizens are financially heterogeneous, this paper shows that inefficient outcomes can arise when...

This paper analyzes the pillar of modern central bank governance, i.e. central bank independence, highlighting three contributions. First, we provide a systematic review of the economics of central bank independence. Second, using a principal agent model we design a political economy framework,...

This paper develops a structural macroeconometric model of the world economy, disaggregated into thirty five national economies. This panel unobserved components model features a monetary transmission mechanism, a fiscal transmission mechanism, and extensive macrofinancial linkages, both within...

Inflation in advanced economies is low by historical standards but there is no threat of deflation. Slower economic growth is caused by supply-side constraints rather than low inflation. Below-the-target inflation does not damage the reputation of central banks. Thus, central banks should not...

The relationship between price stability and economic growth has gained importance as a fundamental reason for the monetary policies based on the inflation targeting regime. Nevertheless, there is no theoretical evidence as to which inflation level is considered to be high or low for economic...

We examine the relative ability of simple inflation targeting (IT) and price level targeting (PLT) monetary policy rules to minimize both inflation variability and business cycle fluctuations in Canada for shocks that have important consequences for global commodity prices. We find that...

In this paper I evaluate inflation targeting for ten countries. The evaluation is based on unconditional as well as conditional measures of the variance of inflation around target. With strict inflation targeting, expectations of the future deviation from target given information about the...

The paper presents evidence on exchange rate pass-through and the "Fear of Floating" hypothesis before and after Inflation Targeting for a set of developed and emerging market economies. We use a structural VAR model to estimate the effect of depreciations on prices. The results support the view...

The inflation targeting (IT) regime is 17 years old. With practice of IT now in more than 21 countries, there is enough evidence gathered to take stock of the IT experience. In this paper, we analyze the inflation record of IT central banks. We extend the work of Albagli and Schmidt-Hebbel...