Inflation Targeting: Lessons from the International Experience
by Ben S. Bernanke
from Princeton University Press
How should governments and central banks use monetary policy to create a healthy economy? Traditionally, policymakers have used such strategies as controlling the growth of the money supply or pegging the exchange rate to a stable currency. In recent years a promising new approach has emerged: publicly announcing and pursuing specific targets for the rate of inflation. This book is the first in-depth study of inflation targeting. Combining penetrating theoretical analysis with detailed empirical studies of countries where inflation targeting has been adopted, the authors show that the strategy has clear advantages over traditional policies. They argue that the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank should adopt this strategy, and they make specific proposals for doing so.
The book begins by explaining the unique features and advantages of inflation targeting. The authors argue that the simplicity and openness of inflation targeting make it far easier for the public to understand the intent and effects of monetary policy. This strategy also increases policymakers' accountability for inflation performance and can accommodate flexible, even "discretionary," monetary policy actions without sacrificing central banks' credibility. The authors examine how well variants of this approach have worked in nine countries: Germany and Switzerland (which employ a money-focused form of inflation targeting), New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Israel, Spain, and Australia. They show that these countries have typically seen lower inflation, lower inflation expectations, and lower nominal interest rates, and have found that one-time shocks to the price level have less of a "pass-through" effect on inflation. These effects, in turn, are improving the climate for economic growth. The authors warn, however, that the success of inflation targeting depends on operational details, such as how the targets are defined and when they are announced. They also show that inflation targeting is not a panacea that can make inflation perfectly predictable or reduce it without economic costs.
Clear, balanced, and authoritative, Inflation Targeting is a groundbreaking study that will have a major impact on the debate over the right monetary strategy for the coming decades. As a unique comparative study of what central banks actually do in different countries around the world, this book will also be invaluable to anyone interested in how economic policy is made.
Monetary Policy with Very Low Inflation in the Pacific Rim (National Bureau of Economic Research-East Asia Seminar on Economics)
from University Of Chicago Press
The editors of this volume attribute low inflation and deflation in the region to a number of recent phenomena. Some of these episodes, they argue, may be linked to rapid growth on the supply side of economies. Here, inadequate demand policy can produce what is referred to as a "liquidity trap" in which the expectation of falling prices encourages agents to defer costly purchases, thereby discouraging growth. Low inflation rates can also be traced to the presence of a "zero-lower bound" on interest rates, as well as the inflation-targeting phenomenon. Targets have been set so low, the editors argue, that in some cases a few bad shocks lead to deflation.
Topics in Applied Macrodynamic Theory (Dynamic Modeling and Econometrics in Economics and Finance)
by Peter Flaschel
from Springer
This book presents topics in applied dynamic macrotheory for closed and open economies. The authors give an advanced treatment of macroeconomic topics such as the Phillips curve, forward and backward looking behavior, open economy macrodynamics, structural macroeconometric model building as well as the empirics of Keynesian oriented macro models. They start from the closed economy and consider open economies for fixed and flexible exchange rate systems with free international capital flows later on. The dynamics of open economies in the context of interacting two country models are treated as well. The macrofounded approach extends and integrates non-market-clearing traditions in macrodynamics. It is compared to New Keynesian approaches which are generally rigorously microfounded, but often neglect to study macroeconomic feedback mechanisms (that may be stabilizing or destabilizing).
The chapters - though representing a coherent whole - are self-contained and can be used independently of each other.
Interest and Inflation Free Money: Creating an Exchange Medium That Works for Everybody and Protects the Earth
From Bretton Woods to World Inflation: A Study of the Causes and Consequences
by Henry Hazlitt
from Regnery Pub
The International Transmission of Inflation (National Bureau of Economic Research Monograph)
by Michael R. Darby
from University Of Chicago Press
The authors construct a consistent data base of information for eight countries and design a theoretically sound model to test and evaluate competing hypotheses incorporating the most recent theoretical developments. Additional chapters address an impressive variety of issues that complement and corroborate the core of the study. They answer such questions as these: Can countries conduct an independent monetary policy under fixed exchange rates? How closely tied are product prices across countries? How are disturbances transmitted across countries?
The International Transmission of Inflation is an important contribution to international monetary economics in furnishing an invaluable empirical foundation for future investigation and discussion.
Death of Inflation: Surviving and Thriving in the Zero Era
by Roger Bootle
from Nicholas Brealey Publishing
Imagine a world without inflation: prices rising in some years but falling in others; pay rising by 2 or 3% inthe good years, but static or falling in the bad ones; house prices are likely to fall as to rise; interest rates in the range of 2-4%. A purely imaginary world? No.
The Currency Game: Exchange Rate Politics in Latin America (Inter-American Development Bank)
from Inter-American Development Bank
Exchange rates have been central to the course of economic development in Latin America from the heyday of import substitution to the rapid expansion of foreign debt in the 1970s, and from the debt crisis and its troubled aftermath to renewed growth and borrowing in the 1990s.
Why do governments choose the currency policies they do, and how do economic and political factors affect these policies? Although currency policy is made by governments operating in a political environment, there has been little study of the political economy of exchange rate policy. The Currency Game looks to fill this void by examining the range of potential determinants of currency choices by Latin American governments. While purely economic factors--especially economic structure, trade patterns, and exogenous economic conditions--are of course important to these choices, the book focuses on the political and political economy considerations that have typically been underrepresented in the literature. These include the effects of interest groups, electoral competition, and the timing of elections on exchange rate decisions.
Since exchange regimes are adopted for reasons as diverse as inflation control, reduced volatility and improved competitiveness, the book also features a cross-country analysis of national exchange rate policies, as well as case studies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru.
World Inflation since 1950: An International Comparative Study (National Institute of Economic and Social Research Economic and Social Studies)
This book is a comparative study of the origins and experience of inflation since 1950 in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, West Germany, France, and Italy, and in the world economy as a whole. It looks at the history of inflation, and the relationship of changes in rates of inflation and real income growth. Further chapters look at the kinds of inflationary impulse and their origins (particularly with regard to the money supply and the labour market), the role of expectations, the apparent effects of inflation on income distribution, the level of unemployment and the rate of economic growth. The final chapter looks at the effects on inflation of the depression of 1979-82, and draws the conclusions together.
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