Inflation targeting and monetary policy in Canada: What is the impact on inflation uncertainty?

Inflation uncertainty has been demonstrated both theoretically and empirically to lower real output. This paper examines the impact of inflation targeting in Canada on inflation uncertainty, as well as persistence. Our results indicate that inflation targeting lowered inflation persistence, but actually increased uncertainty. Such an effect may be due to the failure of the previous formal target, the M1 money supply, to successfully combat inflation.     

Inflation targets and inflation targeting

This paper examines the Federal Reserve System’s dual policy mandate pertaining to the promotion of price stability and high employment. It reviews the relative merits of single and dual mandates and assesses the viability of explicit inflation targets. An inflation-targeting regime is described and the experiences of several countries are reviewed. These considerations lead to proposed adoption of an explicit inflation target within the context of the Fed’s current dual mandate. This policy reform would, among other things, increase policy transparency and provide a firm anchor for inflation expectations.     

通货膨胀目标制:加拿大银行的政策实践与启示

在加拿大的通货膨胀目标制政策框架下,中央银行定期向公众宣布政策通货膨胀目标,然后根据通货膨胀预测值与政策目标之间的差距来确定调控方向;在实践中,加拿大银行通过使用利率操作区间和公告操作,从而很好地实现了对市场流动性及短期利率目标的调控,进而影响到市场主体的经济决策,并最终成功实现了实际通货膨胀率稳定地波动在中央银行的目标范围内。基于此,我国有必要借鉴加拿大银行的做法,建立一个更为简单透明的政策操作框架,以保证货币政策操作的效果。     

Inflation targeting and expectation anchoring: Evidence from developed and emerging market economies

Inflation expectations can be inferred from treasury yields data. Previous studies utilizing such data have found evidence for the role of inflation targeting in anchoring inflation expectations in a number of developed market economies. The goal of this paper is to extend the evidence for emerging market economies. We estimate inflation expectations from nominal treasury yields data and infer the anchoring of inflation expectations from the sensitivity of inflation expectations to current inflation rates. Our analysis shows that the effect of inflation targeting is statistically significant in emerging market economies as well as in developed market economies and that the magnitude is marginally greater in the former. Our results are robust to alternative specifications.     

Performance Contracting In Practice: Experience and lessons from the water sector in Ghana

This article provides some insights into how performance contracting works in practice in a developing country context, using the case of the Ghana Water and Sewerage Corporation (GWSC). Performance contracting has been a useful instrument for restructuring the state-owned enterprises (SOE) sector in Ghana, and the GWSC has made some moderate improvements since its introduction. However, the article highlights some of the institutional constraints and capacity issues that reformers will have to pay attention to, including overstretched capacity of the monitoring agency, a weak information management system and inconsistent compliance to contract by government. The findings also highlight the difficulty of separating politics from operational/management issues, especially in politically sensitive public services, yet performance contracting relies on such separation to be effective. Also it shows how informal behaviour undermines the formality of performance contracting.     

中国通货膨胀与通货膨胀不确定性的非线性关系

本文利用1983年1月~2007年1月CPI月度数据,应用Hamilton提出的能同时发现数据线性和非线性关系的随机场回归模型,对中国通货膨胀与通货膨胀不确定性的非线性关系进行实证研究。实证的结论支持了Friedman-Ball假设和Cukierman-Meltzer假设。前者呈现U型的非线性关系,这意味高的通货膨胀和通货紧缩都将导致高的不确定性,这一发现补充了Friedman-Ball假设;而对于后者,呈现出更为复杂的N型非线性关系。本文的结论对中央银行控制通货膨胀不确定性具有一定的借鉴意义。     

Productivity and Inflation: a Paradox

In his Budget speech, Mr. Lawson drew attention to the greatly improved record of productivity growth in UK manufacturing:
"During the 1960s, and again in the 1970s, growth in manufacturing productivity in the UK was the lowest of all the seven major industrial countries in the world. During the 1980s, our annual rate of growth of output per head in manufacturing has been the highest of all the seven major industrial countries."
Ironically this success in regard to productivity may cause a problem in regard to inflation if the UK moves to a fixed exchange rate policy within the EMS. In this Viewpoint we report the consequence of such a move and also describe the possible required rise in the exchange rate if price stability is to be attained. We show that price stability requires the exchange rate to rise (i) to offset world inflation and (ii) to compensate for the productivity gap between the traded and non-traded sectors.     

Time-Varying Relationship between Inflation and Inflation Uncertainty

This paper investigates whether the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty has changed and whether the change in this relationship has been gradual or abrupt. We extend the time-varying parameter with stochastic volatility in mean model (TVP-SVM) to include a mixture innovation disturbance in the time-varying parameter process. The proposed model produces more reliable estimates and allows us to investigate the occurrence of breaks in the gradually evolving process of the time varying coefficients. Using data of US, Germany, Canada, New Zealand, UK, France, Italy, Spain and Australia, we find that: (i) the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty substantially varies over time; (ii) there is strong support for the existence of abrupt changes in the US inflation–inflation uncertainty relationship; (iii) our empirical results of Canada and New Zealand show that the correlation between inflation and inflation uncertainty has been much weaker since early 1990s, which coincides with the timing of the implementation of inflation targeting.     

Modelling Category Inflation with Multiple Inflation Processes: Estimation,Specification and Testing1

Zero‐inflated ordered probit (ZIOP) and middle‐inflated ordered probit (MIOP) models are finding increasing favour in the discrete choice literature. We propose generalizations to these models – which collapse to their ZIOP/MIOP counterparts under a set of simple parameter restrictions – with respect to the inflation process. These generalizations form the basis of a new specification test of the inflation process in ZIOP and MIOP models. Support for our generalization framework is principally demonstrated by revisiting a key ZIOP application from the economics literature, and reinforced by the reassessment of an important MIOP application from political science. Our specification test supports the generalized models over the original ZIOP/MIOP ones, suggesting an important role for it in modelling zero‐ and middle‐inflation processes.     

Money stock targeting and money supply: An intertemporal optimization approach (with an application to Canada)

We propose a model of the short-term behaviour of the monetary authorities of a small open economy that is willing to stabilize, to some extent, its bilateral exchange rate vis-à-vis a dominant partner. The optimal money supply strategy is derived using intertemporal optimization arguments, in a rational expectations environment, The model is formulated so as to avoid the time inconsistency problem stressed by Kydland and Prescott (1977). It allows econometric estimation of the optimal money supply rule as well as of the parameters of the intertemporal utility function, and of the function that defines the intermediate target money stock. The model is successfully estimated on Canadian quarterly data, using maximum-likelihood techniques.     

Modelling Category Inflation with Multiple Inflation Processes: Estimation,Specification and Testing1

Zero-inflated ordered probit (ZIOP) and middle-inflated ordered probit (MIOP) models are finding increasing favour in the discrete choice literature. We propose generalizations to these models – which collapse to their ZIOP/MIOP counterparts under a set of simple parameter restrictions – with respect to the inflation process. These generalizations form the basis of a new specification test of the inflation process in ZIOP and MIOP models. Support for our generalization framework is principally demonstrated by revisiting a key ZIOP application from the economics literature, and reinforced by the reassessment of an important MIOP application from political science. Our specification test supports the generalized models over the original ZIOP/MIOP ones, suggesting an important role for it in modelling zero- and middle-inflation processes.     

Inflation and firm growth: A reassessment

Investigations into the impact of inflation on firm growth have resulted in ambiguous conclusions within the economic growth and financial management literature. This paper will attempt to clarify this situation and describe conditions under which firm growth will be helped or hindered by inflaction. This is accomplished by constructing a financial modelling framework which incorporates the findings of earlier research and allows the various effects to be contrasted and cumulatively assessed. Our findings suggest that conditions under which inflation may be beneficial to firm growth do exist but are realistically improbable.     

Inflation and Growth: Stories Short and Tall

This paper reviews the stories that economists tell about the growth effects of inflation. Informal accounts are common, but there are few models that get to grips with the effects that are probably central. Partly as a result of this, and partly as a result of many econometric problems, much of the empirical evidence remains unconvincing. The paper assesses the various contributions, and suggests possible improvements.     

预期、混合菲利普斯曲线与中国通货膨胀动态特征

将货币因素与输入性因素（如汇率、国际石油价格等）引入新凯恩斯混合菲利普斯曲线框架构建高阶滞后的混合菲利普斯曲线模型,并利用1995年第1季度至2013年第2季度的数据进行实证分析,结果显示：总需求变化对我国通货膨胀率的影响很小,而货币因素与输入性因素（如汇率以及国际大宗商品价格变化）成为影响我国通货膨胀率的重要因素;我国通货膨胀主要受到前瞻性预期的影响,而通胀惯性对通货膨胀水平的影响不大;相对而言,货币因素对我国通货膨胀具有最重要的影响。     

中国是否存在最优通货膨胀区间——通货膨胀和经济增长关系实证研究

利用门限回归模型（threshold regression model）分析中国通货膨胀与经济增长之间的关系,实证研究发现中国通货膨胀对经济增长的影响不是单一形态,而是具有非线性特征。中国经济存在最优通货膨胀区间1.4％～5．1％,而当通货膨胀高于5．1％或低于1．4％时,通货膨胀（通过影响生产要素）对经济增长有负的影响。     

中国是否存在最优通货膨胀区间——通货膨胀和经济增长关系实证研究

利用门限回归模型(threshold regression model)分析中国通货膨胀与经济增长之间的关系,实证研究发现中国通货膨胀对经济增长的影响不是单一形态,而是具有非线性特征。中国经济存在最优通货膨胀区间1.4%～5.1%,而当通货膨胀高于5.1%或低于1.4%时,通货膨胀(通过影响生产要素)对经济增长有负的影响。     

World Inflation: USA Major Cause

'Monetarism' is said to be under attack and in retreat. Its practitioners claim it offers surer guidance to the financial condition of Western economies than alternative explanations. Professor Michael Darby and James Lothian, after a wide-ranging study of monetary policy in eight countries over nearly thirty years, argue that the US economy can expect a dip in economic growth in mid-1984.     

Inflation and debt maturity

The maturity structure of private debt decreases with inflation. I argue that this occurs because of the relative price variability that tends to accompany inflation. Additional variability in relative prices aggravates the temptations of debtors to increase risk at the expense of expected returns. Specifically, it encourages debtors, particularly long-term debtors, to overexpose themselves to changes in relative prices by holding inventories which are too low and by engaging in too little forward-selling. Recognizing this, rational behavior by creditors causes the maturity structure of debt to decrease with inflation.