Estimated, calibrated, and optimal interest rate rules are examined for their ability to dampen economic fluctuations caused by random shocks. A tax rate rule is also considered. The results show that the estimated interest rate rule used in the paper is stable for the period beginning in 1954 except for the early Volcker period, although more observations, especially high inflation ones, are n...

This paper uses a new data set that better measures inflation uncertainty to investigate the effects of inflation and inflation uncertainty on economic growth. In the cross section of forty-four countries that the new data allows, inflation uncertainty has a significant negative impact on economic growth. Uncertainty performs better than inflation crisis as an explanatory variable of economic g...

Several authors report regressions where inflation slows economic growth. These results have been criticized because of their sensitivity to the sample analyzed and because there does not appear to be a strong theoretical reason for believing that inflation significantly lowers growth. Indeed, researchers have suggested that inflation proxies for inflation uncertainty or poor economic policy. M...

At the end of the 80’s Central European Countries started to abandon their administratively fixed exchange rates and graudally adopted new monetary regimes with more or less emphasis on the exchange rate, inflation and growth targets. This study analyses the economic background of the choice of monetary regime in these countries and their success in curbing inflation. The main question the pape...

A number of recent papers have explored monetary policy options, including inflation targeting and inflation forecast targeting (notably Svensson (1999a, 1999b, 2000)) and price level targeting (Wolman 2000, Batini and Yates 1999, Blinder 1999). Most papers explore “optimal” monetary policy in the context of a single model. However, a number of conclusions made in the literature depend strongly...

Starting with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, over the past twenty years a large number of central banks have adopted inflation targeting as their framework for monetary policy. As the second decade of inflation targeting comes to a close, a retrospective assessing how well it has worked, what lessons have been learned and what challenges may lie ahead is most appropriate. During much of the p...

Today many argue that there appears to be an epidemic case of “fear of floating”. Some have further claimed that credible inflation targeting – a popular regime choice today – and fear of floating are identical regimes. This paper takes a different view. We modify Calvo and Reinhart’s (2002) approach to analyze the behavior of exchange rates, reserves, interest rates and inflation across 88 exc...