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The Case for Forecast Targeting as a Monetary Policy Strategy

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  • Michael Woodford

Abstract

At central banks around the world, including the Bank of England, Sweden's Riksbank, Norway's Norges Bank, and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, policy is conducted on the basis of "inflation-forecast targeting": the central bank constructs quantitative projections of the economy's expected future evolution based on the way in which it intends to control short-term interest rates, and public discussion of those projections plays a critical role in justifying the banks' conduct of monetary policy to the public. What accounts for the appeal of this approach? Should it be adopted more widely or more explicitly? I review the long-running debate between proponents of monetary rules and proponents of discretionary monetary policy and argue that inflation-forecast targeting represents a powerful synthesis of the two approaches. I explore some common questions that arise about inflation-forecast targeting and consider how the U.S. Federal Reserve might move toward an explicit policy of inflation-forecast targeting.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Volume (Year): 21 (2007)
Issue (Month): 4 (Fall)
Pages: 3-24
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Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:21:y:2007:i:4:p:3-24

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  1. Arturo Estrella & Frederic S. Mishkin, 1996. "Is There a Role for Monetary Aggregates in the Conduct of Monetary Policy?," NBER Working Papers 5845, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Jansson, Per & Vredin, Anders, 2003. "Forecast-Based Monetary Policy: The Case of Sweden," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(3), pages 349-80, Winter.
  3. Benjamin M. Friedman & Kenneth N. Kuttner, 1996. "A price target for U.S. monetary policy? Lessons from the experience with money growth targets," Working Paper Series, Macroeconomic Issues WP-96-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
  4. Kosuke Aoki & Kalin Nikolov, 2004. "Rule-based monetary policy under central bank learning," Bank of England working papers 235, Bank of England.
  5. Luca Benati, 2006. "UK monetary regimes and macroeconomic stylised facts," Bank of England working papers 290, Bank of England.
  6. Michael Woodford, 2005. "Central Bank Communication and Policy Effectiveness," NBER Working Papers 11898, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Lars E.O. Svensson & Michael Wooford, 2000. "Indicator variables for optimal policy," Working Paper Series 12, European Central Bank.
  8. Svensson, Lars E O, 1998. "Inflation Targeting as a Monetary Policy Rule," CEPR Discussion Papers 1998, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  9. Leitemo, Kai, 2003. " Targeting Inflation by Constant-Interest-Rate Forecasts," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 35(4), pages 609-26, August.
  10. Sargent, Thomas J & Wallace, Neil, 1975. ""Rational" Expectations, the Optimal Monetary Instrument, and the Optimal Money Supply Rule," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(2), pages 241-54, April.
  11. Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Shapiro, Matthew D., 2007. "Monetary policy when potential output is uncertain: Understanding the growth gamble of the 1990s," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 1132-1162, May.
  12. Marc P. Giannoni & Michael Woodford, 2003. "Optimal Inflation Targeting Rules," NBER Working Papers 9939, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  13. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-91, June.
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Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Bernanke: Monetary Policy and the Housing Bubble
    by Mark Thoma in Economist's View on 2010-01-03 20:06:00
  2. Monetary Policy and the Housing Bubble
    by Guest Author in the big picture on 2010-01-04 11:00:02
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
Cited by:
  1. Jagjit S. Chadha & Luisa Corrado & Sean Holly, 2008. "Reconnecting Money to Inflation: The Role of the External Finance Premium," Studies in Economics 0816, Department of Economics, University of Kent.
  2. Lucjan T. Orlowski, 2008. "Stages of the Ongoing Global Financial Crisis: Is There a Wandering Asset-Price Bubble?," CASE Network Studies and Analyses 0372, CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research.
  3. Vasco Cúrdia & Michael Woodford, 2009. "Credit Spreads and Monetary Policy," Discussion Papers 0910-01, Columbia University, Department of Economics.
  4. Orlowski, Lucjan T, 2008. "Stages of the 2007/2008 Global Financial Crisis: Is There a Wandering Asset-Price Bubble?," MPRA Paper 12696, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  5. Skrove Falch, Nina & Nymoen, Ragnar, 2011. "The accuracy of a forecast targeting central bank," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, vol. 5(15), pages 1-36.
  6. Reinhart, Carmen & Felton, Andrew, 2008. "The First Global Financial Crisis of the 21st Century," MPRA Paper 11862, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  7. Baldursson, Fridrik M. & Hall, Axel, 2008. "Out of reach? Convergence to an inflation target in the Central Bank of Iceland's macroeconomic model," MPRA Paper 13930, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  8. Lucjan T. Orlowski, 2008. "Stages of the Ongoing Global Financial Crisis: Is There a Wandering Asset Bubble?," IWH Discussion Papers 11, Halle Institute for Economic Research.

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