Inflation targets

• November 24, 2004

  Asset Prices and Monetary Policy: A Canadian Perspective on the Issues

  Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2004 Jack Selody, Carolyn A. Wilkins

  The issue addressed in this article is the extent to which monetary policy in Canada should respond to asset-price bubbles. The article concludes that maintaining low and stable consumer price inflation is the best contribution that monetary policy can make to promoting economic and financial stability, even when the economy experiences asset-price bubbles. In extreme circumstances—when an asset-price bubble is well identified and likely to have significant costs to the economy when it bursts—monetary policy might better maintain low and stable consumer price inflation by leaning against a particular bubble even though it may mean that inflation deviates temporarily from its target. Such a strategy might reduce the risk that a crash in asset prices could lead to a recession and to inflation markedly below target in the longer run. The circumstances where this strategy is possible will be rare because economists are far from being able to determine consistently and reliably when leaning against a particular bubble is likely to do more harm than good. Housing-price bubbles should be a greater concern for Canadian monetary policy than equity-price bubbles, since rising housing prices are more likely to reflect excessively easy domestic credit conditions than are equity prices, which are largely determined in global markets.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Inflation targets, Monetary and financial indicators, Monetary policy framework

• The Implications of Transmission and Information Lags for the Stabilization Bias and Optimal Delegation

  Staff Working Paper 2004-37 Jean-Paul Lam, Florian Pelgrin

  In two recent papers, Jensen (2002) and Walsh (2003), using a hybrid New Keynesian model, demonstrate that a regime that targets either nominal income growth or the change in the output gap can effectively replicate the outcome under commitment and hence reduce the size of the stabilization bias.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation targets, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, E58, E6, E62

• Optimal Taylor Rules in an Estimated Model of a Small Open Economy

  Staff Working Paper 2004-36 Steve Ambler, Ali Dib, Nooman Rebei

  The authors compute welfare-maximizing Taylor rules in a dynamic general-equilibrium model of a small open economy.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Exchange rates, Inflation targets JEL Code(s): F, F2, F3, F31, F33