Australian Monetary Policy in the Last Quarter of the Twentieth Century

This paper was delivered as the 1998 Shann Memorial Lecture. It describes the evolution of Australia's monetary policy over the past 25 years. It focuses on three aspects of this development: first, improvements to the institutional structure; second, the search for the optimal policy framework; and third, the issue of central bank independence. Particular attention is paid to the period between the end of monetary targeting (1985) and the introduction of inflation targeting (1993).