Download or read book Uncertainty About the Persistence of Periods with Large Price Shocks and the Optimal Reaction of the Monetary Authority written by Arnulfo Rodriguez and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncertainty about the persistence of periods characterized by large price shocks is an important aspect of monetary policy. This type of uncertainty posed some difficulties for central banks in 2004. This paper formalizes the treatment of this type of uncertainty by solving an optimal control problem in which the economy randomly alternates between two regimes characterized by different magnitudes of price shocks. By using an open economy model, we find that the optimal policy rule is both regime-contingent and robust. In particular, we find that: a) the optimal reaction of the interest rate is dependent on both the current regime and on the difference in the magnitude of the shocks between regimes; and b) after a robust selection of transition probabilities, the min-max probability of switching to the regime with large price shocks increases when such regime is more harmful. In general, cautious behavior renders smaller losses than recklessness for the monetary authority. This result argues in favor of caution over recklessness in the formulation of monetary policy when there is uncertainty about the persistence of periods with large price shocks.
Download or read book Japanese Monetary Policy During the Collapse of the Bubble Economy written by Ippei Fujiwara and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Focusing on policy-making under uncertainty, we analyze the Bank of Japan's monetary policy in the early 1990s when the bubble economy collapsed. Conducting stochastic simulations with a large-scale macroeconomic model of the Japanese economy, we find that the BOJ's monetary policy at that time was essentially optimal under uncertainty about the policy multiplier. On the other hand, we also find that the BOJ's policy was not optimal under uncertainty about inflation dynamics, and that a more aggressive policy response than actually implemented would have been needed. Thus, optimal monetary policy differs greatly depending upon which type of uncertainty is emphasized. Taking into account the fact that overcoming deflation became an important issue from the latter 1990s, it is possible to argue that during the early 1990s the BOJ should have placed greater emphasis on uncertainty about inflation dynamics and implemented a more aggressive monetary policy. The result from a counter-factual simulation indicates that the inflation rate and the real growth rate would have been higher to some extent if the BOJ had implemented a more accommodative policy during the early 1990s. However, the simulation result also suggests that the effects would have been limited, and that an accommodative monetary policy itself would not have changed the overall image of the prolonged stagnation of the Japanese economy during the 1990s."--Author's abstract.
Download or read book Monetary Policy Rules written by John B. Taylor and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely volume presents the latest thinking on the monetary policy rules and seeks to determine just what types of rules and policy guidelines function best. A unique cooperative research effort that allowed contributors to evaluate different policy rules using their own specific approaches, this collection presents their striking findings on the potential response of interest rates to an array of variables, including alterations in the rates of inflation, unemployment, and exchange. Monetary Policy Rules illustrates that simple policy rules are more robust and more efficient than complex rules with multiple variables. A state-of-the-art appraisal of the fundamental issues facing the Federal Reserve Board and other central banks, Monetary Policy Rules is essential reading for economic analysts and policymakers alike.
Download or read book Analysis and Control of Dynamic Economic Systems written by Gregory C. Chow and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1975 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ANALYSIS OF DYNAMIC ECONOMIC SYSTEMS; CONTROL OF DYNAMIC ECONOMIC SYSTEMS.
Download or read book The Great Inflation written by Michael D. Bordo and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-06-28 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity. This volume focuses on understanding the causes of the Great Inflation of the 1970s and ’80s, which saw rising inflation in many nations, and which propelled interest rates across the developing world into the double digits. In the decades since, the immediate cause of the period’s rise in inflation has been the subject of considerable debate. Among the areas of contention are the role of monetary policy in driving inflation and the implications this had both for policy design and for evaluating the performance of those who set the policy. Here, contributors map monetary policy from the 1960s to the present, shedding light on the ways in which the lessons of the Great Inflation were absorbed and applied to today’s global and increasingly complex economic environment.
Download or read book International Dimensions of Monetary Policy written by Jordi Galí and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 663 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: United States monetary policy has traditionally been modeled under the assumption that the domestic economy is immune to international factors and exogenous shocks. Such an assumption is increasingly unrealistic in the age of integrated capital markets, tightened links between national economies, and reduced trading costs. International Dimensions of Monetary Policy brings together fresh research to address the repercussions of the continuing evolution toward globalization for the conduct of monetary policy. In this comprehensive book, the authors examine the real and potential effects of increased openness and exposure to international economic dynamics from a variety of perspectives. Their findings reveal that central banks continue to influence decisively domestic economic outcomes—even inflation—suggesting that international factors may have a limited role in national performance. International Dimensions of Monetary Policy will lead the way in analyzing monetary policy measures in complex economies.
Download or read book Monetary and Fiscal Policies in EMU written by Marco Buti and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-11-13 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading scholars and policy makers examine the challenges that are facing economic policies in the EMU today.
Download or read book Expectations Anchoring and Inflation Persistence written by Mr.Rudolfs Bems and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2018-12-11 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding the sources of inflation persistence is crucial for monetary policy. This paper provides an empirical assessment of the influence of inflation expectations' anchoring on the persistence of inflation. We construct a novel index of inflation expectations' anchoring using survey-based inflation forecasts for 45 economies starting in 1989. We then study the response of consumer prices to terms-of-trade shocks for countries with flexible exchange rates. We find that these shocks have a significant and persistent effect on consumer price inflation when expectations are poorly anchored. By contrast, inflation reacts by less and returns quickly to its pre-shock level when expectations are strongly anchored.
Download or read book Designing a Simple Loss Function for Central Banks written by Davide Debortoli and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2017-07-21 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yes, it makes a lot of sense. This paper studies how to design simple loss functions for central banks, as parsimonious approximations to social welfare. We show, both analytically and quantitatively, that simple loss functions should feature a high weight on measures of economic activity, sometimes even larger than the weight on inflation. Two main factors drive our result. First, stabilizing economic activity also stabilizes other welfare relevant variables. Second, the estimated model features mitigated inflation distortions due to a low elasticity of substitution between monopolistic goods and a low interest rate sensitivity of demand. The result holds up in the presence of measurement errors, with large shocks that generate a trade-off between stabilizing inflation and resource utilization, and also when ensuring a low probability of hitting the zero lower bound on interest rates.
Download or read book Hysteresis and Business Cycles written by Ms.Valerie Cerra and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2020-05-29 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditionally, economic growth and business cycles have been treated independently. However, the dependence of GDP levels on its history of shocks, what economists refer to as “hysteresis,” argues for unifying the analysis of growth and cycles. In this paper, we review the recent empirical and theoretical literature that motivate this paradigm shift. The renewed interest in hysteresis has been sparked by the persistence of the Global Financial Crisis and fears of a slow recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. The findings of the recent literature have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. In recessions, monetary and fiscal policies need to be more active to avoid the permanent scars of a downturn. And in good times, running a high-pressure economy could have permanent positive effects.
Download or read book Why Inflation Targeting written by Charles Freedman and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2009-04-01 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 discussion of the need for a nominal anchor, we describe a specific type of monetary anchor, the inflation-targeting regime, and its two key intellectual roots-the absence of long-run trade-offs and the time-inconsistency problem. We conclude by providing a brief introduction to the way in which inflation targeting works.
Download or read book The Inflation Targeting Debate written by Ben S. Bernanke and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past fifteen years, a significant number of industrialized and middle-income countries have adopted inflation targeting as a framework for monetary policymaking. As the name suggests, in such inflation-targeting regimes, the central bank is responsible for achieving a publicly announced target for the inflation rate. While the objective of controlling inflation enjoys wide support among both academic experts and policymakers, and while the countries that have followed this model have generally experienced good macroeconomic outcomes, many important questions about inflation targeting remain. In Inflation Targeting, a distinguished group of contributors explores the many underexamined dimensions of inflation targeting—its potential, its successes, and its limitations—from both a theoretical and an empirical standpoint, and for both developed and emerging economies. The volume opens with a discussion of the optimal formulation of inflation-targeting policy and continues with a debate about the desirability of such a model for the United States. The concluding chapters discuss the special problems of inflation targeting in emerging markets, including the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary.
Download or read book Economic Policy and the Great Stagflation written by Alan S. Blinder and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2013-09-11 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic Policy and the Great Stagflation discusses the national economic policy and economics as a policy-oriented science. This book summarizes what economists do and do not know about the inflation and recession that affected the U.S. economy during the years of the Great Stagflation in the mid-1970s. The topics discussed include the basic concepts of stagflation, turbulent economic history of 1971-1976, anatomy of the great recession and inflation, and legacy of the Great Stagflation. The relation of wage-price controls, fiscal policy, and monetary policy to the Great Stagflation is also elaborated. This publication is beneficial to economists and students researching on the history of the Great Stagflation and policy errors of the 1970s.
Download or read book Asset Prices and Central Bank Policy written by Stephen Giovanni Cecchetti and published by Centre for Economic Policy Research. This book was released on 2000 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concludes the role of asset prices in monetary policy is one of the most important, and difficult, questions confronting central banks.
Download or read book Monetary Policy Strategy written by Frederic S. Mishkin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book by a leading authority on monetary policy offers a unique view of the subject from the perspectives of both scholar and practitioner. Frederic Mishkin is not only an academic expert in the field but also a high-level policymaker. He is especially well positioned to discuss the changes in the conduct of monetary policy in recent years, in particular the turn to inflation targeting. Monetary Policy Strategydescribes his work over the last ten years, offering published papers, new introductory material, and a summing up, "Everything You Wanted to Know about Monetary Policy Strategy, But Were Afraid to Ask," which reflects on what we have learned about monetary policy over the last thirty years. Mishkin blends theory, econometric evidence, and extensive case studies of monetary policy in advanced and emerging market and transition economies. Throughout, his focus is on these key areas: the importance of price stability and a nominal anch fiscal and financial preconditions for achieving price stability; central bank independence as an additional precondition; central bank accountability; the rationale for inflation targeting; the optimal inflation target; central bank transparency and communication; and the role of asset prices in monetary policy.
Download or read book Inflation Expectations written by Peter J. N. Sinclair and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-12-16 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inflation is regarded by the many as a menace that damages business and can only make life worse for households. Keeping it low depends critically on ensuring that firms and workers expect it to be low. So expectations of inflation are a key influence on national economic welfare. This collection pulls together a galaxy of world experts (including Roy Batchelor, Richard Curtin and Staffan Linden) on inflation expectations to debate different aspects of the issues involved. The main focus of the volume is on likely inflation developments. A number of factors have led practitioners and academic observers of monetary policy to place increasing emphasis recently on inflation expectations. One is the spread of inflation targeting, invented in New Zealand over 15 years ago, but now encompassing many important economies including Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain. Even more significantly, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the United States Federal Bank are the leading members of another group of monetary institutions all considering or implementing moves in the same direction. A second is the large reduction in actual inflation that has been observed in most countries over the past decade or so. These considerations underscore the critical – and largely underrecognized - importance of inflation expectations. They emphasize the importance of the issues, and the great need for a volume that offers a clear, systematic treatment of them. This book, under the steely editorship of Peter Sinclair, should prove very important for policy makers and monetary economists alike.
Download or read book Uncertainty and Unemployment written by Sangyup Choi and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-02-23 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We study the role of uncertainty shocks in explaining unemployment dynamics, separating out the role of aggregate and sectoral channels. Using S&P500 data from the first quarter of 1957 to third quarter of 2014, we construct separate indices to measure aggregate and sectoral uncertainty and compare their effects on the unemployment rate in a standard macroeconomic vector autoregressive (VAR) model. We find that aggregate uncertainty leads to an immediate increase in unemployment, with the impact dissipating within a year. In contrast, sectoral uncertainty has a long-lived impact on unemployment, with the peak impact occurring after two years. The results are consistent with a view that the impact of aggregate uncertainty occurs through a “wait-and-see” mechanism while increased sectoral uncertainty raises unemployment by requiring greater reallocation across sectors.
