Why is Inflation in China a Monetary Phenomenon？

This paper proposes that inflation in China during the post‐reform era (1978 onwards) is always a monetary phenomenon. We construct a multivariate dynamic model based on Friedman's quantity theory of money and use the standard Granger causality test to show that money growth contains significant predictive power for inflation during the underlying period. The finding is robust to alternative measures of monetary aggregates and both closed and open economy frameworks. The baseline finding of the paper indicates that quantitative tools remain the most important policy instruments for China to manage its inflation effectively.     

A Note on Inflation Targeting

The authors present a pedagogical graphical exposition to illustrate the stabilizing effect of price target zones. Based on a textbook AD-AS apparatus, they find that authorities' commitment to defend a price target zone will affect the public's inflation expectations and, in turn, reduce actual inflation. They also find that, when the economy experiences supply shocks, the announcement that the monetary authorities intend to defend a price target zone will reduce the variability of domestic prices but raise the variability of domestic output relative to a free-price regime. However, when the economy experiences demand shocks, a price target zone tends to lower the variability of both domestic prices and out-put relative to a free-price regime.     

Why persistent high inflation impedes growth? An empirical assessment of threshold level of inflation for India

In the policy debate on growth–inflation trade-off and the role of monetary policy in managing the trade-off in the short-run, theoretical and empirical research suggests the presence of a country specific threshold level of inflation. Empirical findings of this paper suggest that for India the threshold level of inflation could be around 6%. The inflation target for monetary policy may have to be somewhat lower than the growth maximizing threshold, since any positive inflation could be a risk to inclusive and sustainable growth objective.     

Inflation Targeting Around the World

This paper examines the inflation record of twenty-nine inflation- and noninflation-targeting economies. Both industrial and emerging market economies are considered. Empirical evidence is based on a comparison of actual and forecasted inflation, an econometric analysis that estimates changes in inflation persistence, and an estimate of the probability of a breach in the inflation target as a proxy for the fragility of the targeting regime. I find that inflation persistence has fallen in only a handful of emerging market economies. However, the inflationtargeting regime is not especially fragile in emerging market economies. As these economies gain experience with inflation targets and respond appropriately to forecast errors generated by the private sector, the likelihood of breaches in the target ranges tends to fall.     

Forecasting inflation in China

This paper forecasts inflation in China over a 12-month horizon. The analysis runs 15 alternative models and finds that only those considering many predictors via a principal component display a better relative forecasting performance than the univariate benchmark.     

浅析我国当前通货膨胀的成因及治理对策建议

稳定物价已成为政府宏观调控的重中之重。为避免由于种种原因形成的通货膨胀给我国经济发展带来较大的负面影响,我们必须采取相关措施,要持续的将总量政策和结构政策相很好的组合起来,进行短期应急计划和措施与建立能长期保证制度正常运行并发挥预期功能的制度体系相结合,综合的采取各种各样的政策组合,比较有指向性地使用各种各样的措施在一定程度上减少对造成物价上涨的各种不利因素,抑制通货膨胀蔓延,使我国经济稳定的发展。     

通货膨胀与金融行业的非理性繁荣:基于1978年～2009年数据的实证研究

通货膨胀的盛行推动了金融行业的非理性发展与繁荣.文章基于统计数据从通货膨胀的微现影响与宏观表现两个层次展开了实证研究,分析了金融业过度膨胀的深层次原因,并提出了相关的政策建议.     

Teaching Inflation Targeting: An Analysis for Intermediate Macro

Over the last decade, many central banks have adopted policies known as inflation targeting. If intermediate-level macroeconomics students are to be prepared to think about current policy issues, it is important to provide them with an introduction to the macroeconomic implications of inflation targeting. Unfortunately, the standard aggregate demand-aggregate supply frameworks commonly used to teach intermediate macroeconomics are not well suited for this task because they are expressed in terms of output and the price level and because they fail to make explicit the policy objectives of the central bank. The author provides a simple graphical device involving the output gap and the inflation rate that overcomes these problems and that can be used to teach intermediate macroeconomics students about inflation targeting.     

Nonlinearity and stationarity of inflation rates: evidence from the euro-zone countries

Earlier studies hardly reject the hypothesis of a unit root in inflation. Few studies have examined the possibility of nonlinearity in inflation and tested nonlinear stationarity of the inflation rates. This study thus intends to fill the gap. This study utilizes the tests for nonlinearity along with the unit root tests that allow for nonlinearity in the variables to examine the stationarity of inflation rates of 12 European countries that formed the Euro Zone (EZ) later in the sample period. The results suggest that the majority of these countries’ inflation rates can be characterized by mean reversion during the floating exchange rate period. Many of them appear to be nonlinear stationary. This finding is essential in conducting applied economic studies for these countries, when constructing models whose validity relies on whether or not inflation is stationary. The results of this study also imply that shocks to inflation have a transitory effect on inflation in the euro area. Therefore, it would be less costly in exercising the policies of disinflation for the monetary authorities of the euro area than for those of the countries with nonstationary inflation.     

Monetary policy for emerging market economies: beyond inflation targeting

Monetary policymakers normally seek to achieve multiple objectives: for prices as well as real economic activity, sometimes for the composition of real activity as well as the aggregate, and often for aspects of the economy's international balance. The fact that monetary policy has only one basic instrument to use therefore creates both complexity and tensions among these objectives. Although inflation targeting represents a way of imposing a logical consistency on monetary policy, in the presence of multiple policy objectives inflation targeting undermines policy transparency and therefore makes accountability more difficult too. Because of the limitation of monetary policy's having only one instrument, but multiple objectives, fiscal policy and prudential supervision and regulation of financial institutions are also important for enabling emerging market economies to achieve their macroeconomic aims.