Inflation surprises and inflation expectations in the Euro area

In the second half of 2012, euro area inflation started declining and reached historical lows at the end of 2014. Market-based measures of inflation expectations also declined to unprecedented levels. During this disinflationary period, inflation releases have often surprised analysts on the downside. We provide evidence that inflation ‘surprises’ have significant effects on inflation expectations. The sensitivity of inflation expectations to the surprises, which has varied over time, disappeared after the introduction of the Asset Purchase Programme by the European Central Bank.     

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.     

Inflation targeting in Brazil

The purpose of this paper is to examine the Inflation Targeting (IT) framework as it is applied in the case of Brazil since its adoption in June 1999. For this purpose we first summarize the macroeconometric model utilized by the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) in its pursuit of the IT framework. While the focus of this paper is on Brazil, we also examine the experience of other countries with IT (in particular, the BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India, and China), both for comparative purposes and for evidence of the extent of success of this ‘new’ economic policy pursued by other IT countries. In addition, we compare the experience of Brazil with IT and with that of non‐IT countries. In the context of non‐IT countries, we ask the question of whether it makes a difference in the fight against inflation whether a country has adopted IT or not. Finally, we examine some features of the Brazilian experience with IT regime.     

The information content of market-based measures for the long-term inflation expectations of professionals: evidence from a midas analysis

Long-term inflation expectations taken from the Survey of Professional Forecasters are a major source of information for monetary policy. Unfortunately, they are published only on a quarterly basis. This article investigates the daily information content of market-based measures, such as inflation-linked swaps and breakeven inflation rates, for the next survey outcome. Using a mixed data sampling approach, we find that professionals account for the daily dynamics of market-based measures when they submit their long-term inflation expectations. We propose a daily indicator of professionals’ inflation expectations that outperforms alternative indicators that ignore the high-frequency dynamics of market-based measures. To illustrate the usefulness of the new indicator, we provide new evidence on the (re-)anchoring of U.S. inflation expectations.     

Inflation targeting credibility and sovereign risk: evidence from Colombia

This article relates to the literature on sovereign risk in developing countries. In particular, we present empirical evidence to address the effect of inflation targeting credibility on sovereign risk based on the Colombian experience. The findings denote that credibility is an important improvement in the institutional framework to reduce the sovereign risk premium.     

Inflation targeting and the need for a new central banking framework

This article critically analyzes inflation targeting (IT) both theoretically and empirically. IT came into prominence in the 1990s and 1 central bank after another adopted this regime in the 1990s and 2000s. Proponents of IT mainly argued that IT regime was successful on the grounds that it resulted in lower inflation rates and hence better economic performances. However, inflation rates in the world were in a downward trend from the 1980s well into the 2000s, and both IT and non-IT regimes managed to decrease their inflation rates. In addition, focusing too much on price stability through IT paved the way for permanently higher than necessary interest rates and disinflationary “tight” monetary policy periods when inflation rate was above an arbitrarily targeted level. Tight monetary policy can and do affect the real economy negatively and overemphasizing price stability may hurt the economy in terms of lower potential output, decreasing investment and more unequal income distribution. Post Keynesians offer valuable alternatives within the framework of parking-it approach to the existing monetary policy paradigm. Our main conclusion is that central banks should set the policy interest rate as low as possible and keep it there, in line with Keynesian “cheap money” policy.     

Inflation targeting and core inflation

Abstract.  This paper examines the interaction of core inflation and inflation targeting as a monetary policy regime. Interest in core inflation has grown because of inflation targeting. Core inflation is defined in numerous ways giving rise to many potential measures; this paper defines core inflation as the best forecaster of inflation. A cross‐country study finds before the start of inflation targeting, but not after, core inflation differs between non‐inflation targeters and inflation targeters. Through conditional regressions, inflation expectations as measured by core inflation have not changed with the advent of inflation targeting nor do they differ from non‐targeters. JEL classification: E52 and E31     

缓解通货膨胀预期的策略思考

通货膨胀的发生会对国民经济发展产生各种不良影响,导致产业和经济结构的畸形变化.通货膨胀预期作为通货膨胀的心理延续对通货膨胀的再现起着举足轻重的作用,所以采取何种措施缓解通货膨胀预期成为中国政策运行的重点.当前通货膨胀预期是需求拉动型、成本推进型和预期型三种类型交叉,金融预期和金融作用紧密结合、投资过热、原材料成本价格上升及市场预期的影响成为通货膨胀预期动因.准确分解通货膨胀预期的成因,采取有针对性的调控政策,落实科学发展观,进行增长模式的改革以及明确宏观经济政策目标,通过合理预期应对通货膨胀预期等措施,成为缓解通货膨胀预期的必经之路.     

通货膨胀目标制的模式及作用机制浅探

通货膨胀目标制是20世纪90年代兴起的一种新的货币政策框架,目前已经在不同地区、不同类型的国家中得到了广泛的应用,并取得良好的效果。通货膨胀这一经济现象是无法完全消灭的,而其失控会不可避免的对经济各方面造成不良的影响。通胀目标制不同于其他货币制度之处就在于它是在通货膨胀失控之前就采取有效措施来预防,而不是每次都等到损害已经造成后再补救。因此,对通货膨胀目标制的定义、模式、作用机制及政策效果进行分析就很有必要,它为中国的货币政策改革提供了一种选择。     

An assessment of inflation targeting in a quantitative monetary business cycle framework: evidence from four early adopters

This article examines the effectiveness of inflation targeting (IT) to stabilize the real economy in advanced countries where IT was adopted in the early 1990s. To quantitatively assess IT, this article employs the monetary business cycle accounting methodology recently developed by ?ustek (2011), which is an extended version of Chari, Kehoe, and McGrattan (2007), to monetary models. Our main finding is that the monetary policy wedge that captures economic fluctuations caused by monetary policy has significantly declined since the implementation of IT in the early 1990s. The results suggest that advanced economies, such as Australia, Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom, that adopted IT in the early 1990s have been successful in stabilizing business cycle fluctuations.     

汇率影响、货币供给与通货膨胀

本文从人民银行近期政策与通货膨胀的现实意义出发,回顾了理论界有关通货膨胀主要成因的观点,并指出输入型通胀、需求拉动型通胀和成本推动型通胀是国内学者普遍认为当下通货膨胀压力的主要成因。根据经典理论分析,我国当下的通货膨胀压力是人民币汇率制度导致我国基础货币被动增发以及扩张性货币政策指导下超量货币供给所带来的流动性过剩问题。     

我国通货膨胀率均值过程和波动过程中的双长记忆性度量与统计检验

This paper uses the ARFIMA-FIGARCH model to investigate the China’s monthly inflation rate from January 1983 to October 2005. It is found that both first moment and second moment of inflation have remarkable long memory, indicating the existence of long memory properties in both inflation level and inflation uncertainty. By the Granger-causality test on inflation rate and inflation uncertainty, it is shown that the inflation level affects the inflation uncertainty and so supports Friedman hypothesis. Therefore, as for policy maker, they should roundly concerns on long memory properties of inflation and inflation uncertainty, and their single-direction relationship between them. __________ Translated from Guanli shijie 管理世界 (Management World), 2007, (7): 14–21     

Exchange Rate Regimes and Inflation: Evidence from India

Abstract

Exchange rate stability is crucial for inflation management as a stable rate is expected to reduce domestic inflation pressures through a ‘policy discipline effect’ – restricting money supply growth, and a ‘credibility effect’ – inducing higher money demand and reduced velocity of money. Alternatively, the ‘impossibility trillema’ of Mundell (1961a Mundell, R. A. (1961a). Capital mobility and stabilization policy under fixed and flexible exchange rates. Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 29, 475–485. doi: 10.2307/139336[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 1961b Mundell, R. A. (1961b). Flexible exchange rates and employment policy. Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 27, 509–517. doi: 10.2307/139437[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) predicts that in the presence of an open capital account, a stable exchange rate may lead to lack of control on monetary policy and, hence, higher inflation. Using a monetary model of Inflation, this paper investigates the impact of the ‘empirically-claimed’ de facto stable exchange rate regime on inflation in India during different sub-periods of exchange rate stability. The results show that the impact of exchange rate regime on inflation is not visible in the Indian case, which could be because of the offsetting sterilization policy undertaken by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during expansionary money supply growth resulting from its large-scale intervention to even out exchange rate volatility.     

On the real effects of inflation and inflation uncertainty in Mexico

We estimate an augmented multivariate GARCH-M model of inflation and output growth for Mexico at business cycle frequencies. The main findings are: (1) inflation uncertainty has a negative and significant effect on growth; (2) once the effect of inflation uncertainty is accounted for, lagged inflation does not have a direct negative effect on output growth; (3) However as predicted by Friedman and Ball, higher average inflation raises inflation uncertainty, and the overall net effect of average inflation on output growth in Mexico is negative. That is, average inflation is harmful to Mexican growth due to its impact on inflation uncertainty. (4) The Mexican Presidential election cycle significantly raises inflation uncertainty both during the year of the election and the year following the election which has correspondingly negative effects on output growth.     

Rational expectations and fixed-event forecasts: An application to UK inflation

This paper tests a version of the rational expectations hypothesis using ‘fixed-event’ inflation forecasts for the UK. Fixed-event forecasts consist of a panel of forecasts for a set of outturns of a series at varying horizons prior to each outturn. The forecasts are the prediction of fund managers surveyed by Merrill Lynch. Fixed-event forecasts allow tests for whether expectations are unbiased in a similar fashion to the rest of the literature. But they also permit the conduct of particular tests of forecast efficiency - whether the forecasts make best use of available information - that are not possible with rolling-event data. We find evidence of a positive bias in inflation expectations. Evidence for inefficiency is much less clear cut.First version received: June 2002/ Final version received: November 2003We would like two anonymous referees and an editor for comments that have significantly improved the paper. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of England.     

中国通货膨胀率及其波动关系分析

有关通货膨胀率和通货膨胀率波动影响关系,存在F riedm an-B a ll和Cuk ierm an-M e ltzer两种假说,即存在通货膨胀率及其波动的相互影响关系。使用GARCH和TGARCH模型,选择中国1993~2004年月度通货膨胀率数据,检验结果表明F riedm an-B a ll假说成立,稳健的货币政策对经济发展有积极作用。     

Fighting inflation in Mexico: Theory and evidence

Mexico adopted the inflation targeting strategy in 2002, and this came together with declining inflation. According to the economic authorities, this also brought about lower pass-through of exchange rate changes into inflation. The objective of this article is to test the main hypotheses of Mexico’s prize-stabilization strategy. As a preliminary step, we show evidence whereby the interest rate has not the impact on demand assumed in the conventional view. We then estimate econometric models, which show first of all that inflation depends essentially on the evolution of labor and input costs. Then we demonstrate that higher employment and higher wages associated with higher output do not necessarily entail higher labor costs because productivity also increases when output rises. In the final section, we set forth our main conclusions, which cast doubts on some crucial aspects of the inflation targeting strategy, and propose a different interpretation about why inflation declined in this country.     

中央银行独立性、责任性与通货膨胀目标制

近年来不少学者提出,我国货币政策应转向通货膨胀目标制。我国现行的政策实际上正是一种隐性的通货膨胀目标制,20世纪90年代以来所发生的几次通货膨胀偏倚很大程度上是由于央行的独立性不够。鉴于通货膨胀目标制并不能解决当前我国货币政策调控中的问题并可能带来更多的问题,今后货币政策改革应坚持由直接调控向间接调控、由数量型调控向价格型调控的转变思路,在提高央行独立性的同时,增强其责任性并提高货币政策的透明度。     

通货膨胀目标制实践经验的国际考察

作为一种新型的货币政策制度框架,标准型通货膨胀目标制在全球的中央银行中已经获得了一定的认同.然而迄今为止,我们还缺乏一个对目前大量的通货膨胀目标制实践经验进行简洁而全面的概括,借以对货币政策的实践和通货膨胀目标钉住者的前景展望提供相应指南.而这种指南之所以必要,是因为队伍不断庞大的发展中国家和新兴市场经济体正在考虑是否采纳通货膨胀目标制.借鉴标准型通货膨胀目标制国家在控制通货膨胀过程中所积累的经验,探讨通货膨胀目标制国家面临的主要问题、发展趋势、政策实践,其目的是为了从国家的角度来思考是否应该采纳通货膨胀目标制;而对于已经实施通货膨胀目标制的国家,则要考虑如何健全这一制度框架.