Inflation targets

• April 15, 2006

  Issues in Inflation Targeting: A Summary of the Bank of Canada Conference Held 28-29 April 2005

  Bank of Canada Review - Spring 2006 Robert Amano, Raphael Solomon

  The Bank of Canada's 2005 conference focused on two critical issues: price-level targets versus inflation targets, and the appropriate level of inflation. Session topics included new methodological approaches to examining the validity of the New Keynesian Phillips curve for Canada; the monetary policy implications of border effects and the financial-accelerator model; the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates; and inflation and welfare in general-equilibrium macroeconomic models. A panel of invited speakers discussed the issues of each session, and two distinguished speakers gave their perspectives on inflation.

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

• The Welfare Implications of Inflation versus Price-Level Targeting in a Two-Sector, Small Open Economy

  Staff Working Paper 2006-12 Eva Ortega, Nooman Rebei

  The authors analyze the welfare implications of simple monetary policy rules in the context of an estimated model of a small open economy for Canada with traded and non-traded goods, and with sticky prices and wages.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Exchange rates, Inflation targets JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32, E5, E52

• The 1975–78 Anti-Inflation Program in Retrospect

  Staff Working Paper 2005-43 John Sargent

  The author provides an overview of the 1975–78 Anti-Inflation Program (AIP), in a background document prepared for a seminar organized by the Bank of Canada to mark the AIP's 30th anniversary.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credibility, Fiscal policy, Inflation and prices, Inflation targets, Monetary policy framework, Monetary policy implementation JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, E52, E6, E63, E64, E65

• Measurement Bias in the Canadian Consumer Price Index

  Staff Working Paper 2005-39 James Rossiter

  The consumer price index (CPI) is the most commonly used measure of inflation in Canada.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Inflation targets JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, E52

• The Exchange Rate and Canadian Inflation Targeting

  Staff Working Paper 2005-34 Christopher Ragan

  The author provides a non-technical explanation of the role played by the exchange rate in Canada's inflation-targeting monetary policy.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Inflation targets, Monetary policy implementation JEL Code(s): E, E5, E50, E52, F, F4, F41
• October 5, 2005

  The Exchange Rate and Canadian Inflation Targeting

  Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2005 Christopher Ragan

  An essential element of the Bank of Canada's inflation-targeting framework is a floating exchange rate that is free to adjust in response to shocks that affect the Canadian and world economies. This floating rate plays an important role in the transmission mechanism for monetary policy. A practical question is how the Bank of Canada incorporates currency movements into the monetary policy decision-making process. Only after determining the cause and persistence of exchange rate change, and its likely net effect on aggregate demand, can the Bank decide on the appropriate policy response to keep inflation low, stable, and predictable. Ragan reviews the need to target inflation and the transmission mechanism for monetary policy, including the role of the exchange rate, before describing two types of exchange rate movements and their implications for monetary policy.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Exchange rates, Inflation targets, Monetary policy implementation
• 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

• A Simple Test of Simple Rules: Can They Improve How Monetary Policy is Implemented with Inflation Targets?

  Staff Working Paper 2003-31 Nicholas Rowe, David Tulk

  The authors evaluate whether an assortment of simple rules could improve how the Bank of Canada implements its inflation-targeting monetary policy. They focus on measuring the correlation between the deviations of inflation from the target and the lagged deviations of rule recommendations from the actual policy interest rate.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation targets, Monetary policy implementation JEL Code(s): E, E5