The representatives at this conference from inflation targeting central banks—including Brazil, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Korea, Thailand, and the United Kingdom—have provided us with a useful overview of how inflation targeting works in practice. These experiences will be very important as other countries, including Indonesia, consider inflation targeting. We have also had so...

On 8 October 1992, three weeks after sterling’s departure from the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System, Norman Lamont, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, established a new framework for monetary policy based on a range of 1%–4% for annual RPIX inflation.(1) In 1997 this framework was further developed with the Bank of England being given operational independence and a symmetr...

We present a simple agency model where agents can inflate the price that principals pay for goods needed to start an investment project. High and variable inflation is assumed to increase the cost of monitoring the agent. We then show how this can lead to higher corruption and lower investment in equilibrium. We also document a positive relationship between corruption and inflation variability ...

There have been two broad theories of inflation, namely the demand-pull theory of inflation (that is nowadays mainly the monetary theory of inflation) and the cost-push theory of inflation. The mainstream macroeconomics views inflation as a monetary phenomenon in the long run. Iran has experienced double-digit rates of inflation for about four decades. Our main aim is an explanation for the lon...

abstract t he relationship between public sector deficits and inflation is one of the important and controversial issues in the academic literature as well as in economic policy field. on the other hand, a major objective of macroeconomic policies is to foster economic growth and to keep inflation on a low level. so keeping the price stability plays an important role in determining the growth r...

Abstract T he relationship between public sector deficits and inflation is one of the important and controversial issues in the academic literature as well as in economic policy field. On the other hand, a major objective of macroeconomic policies is to foster economic growth and to keep inflation on a low level. So keeping the price stability plays an important role in de...

The 1990s have seen a growing number of countries adopt a new approach to the conduct of monetary policy: inflation targeting. Canada was one of the first, formally embarking on this approach in February 1991. It has been very successful in the countries that have adopted it, producing low and stable inflation without lowering output growth (and arguably, helping to increase economic growth). D...

The central banks of New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom have recently decided to make price stability the overriding goal of monetary policy. Similar proposals in the United States have received a lukewarm reception. Although some opponents have argued that moderate inflation is beneficial, many concede its effect on economic welfare is detrimental.1 Instead, they argue that a price st...

We compare optimal and simple interest-rate rules. Our model features optimizing agents, monopolistic competition in both product and labor markets, and one-period nominal contracts (for wages alone or for both wages and prices) signed before shocks are known. Exact solutions ensure that we obtain correct welfare rankings. Optimal rules maximize the unconditional expected utility of the represe...