IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cdh/commen/293.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Flexible Can Inflation Targeting Be? Suggestions for the Future of Canada's Targeting Regime

Author

Listed:
  • Thorsten V. Koeppl

    (Queen's University)

Abstract

In Canada, inflation targeting is widely agreed to have been a success story, but questions about how the regime might be fine-tuned in 2011 remain open. This Commentary asks how much discretion an inflation-targeting Bank of Canada can be allowed without compromising the credibility of its low inflation goal.

Suggested Citation

  • Thorsten V. Koeppl, 2009. "How Flexible Can Inflation Targeting Be? Suggestions for the Future of Canada's Targeting Regime," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 293, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdh:commen:293
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cdhowe.org/public-policy-research/how-flexible-can-inflation-targeting-be-suggestions-future-canadas-targeting-regime
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ben S. Bernanke & Michael Woodford, 2004. "The Inflation-Targeting Debate," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bern04-1, March.
    2. Susan Athey & Andrew Atkeson & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2005. "The Optimal Degree of Discretion in Monetary Policy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(5), pages 1431-1475, September.
    3. Canzoneri, Matthew B, 1985. "Monetary Policy Games and the Role of Private Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(5), pages 1056-1070, December.
    4. Goodfriend, Marvin, 2001. "Financial Stability, Deflation, and Monetary Policy," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 19(S1), pages 143-167, February.
    5. Marion Steele & Francois Des Rosiers, 2009. "Building Affordable Rental Housing in Unaffordable Cities: A Canadian Low-Income Housing Tax Credit," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 289, May.
    6. Pierre L. Siklos, 2009. "As Good As It Gets? The International Dimension to Canada's Monetary Policy Strategy Choices," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 292, July.
    7. Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2007. "Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 586-606, June.
    8. Ehrmann, Michael & Smets, Frank, 2003. "Uncertain potential output: implications for monetary policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(9), pages 1611-1638, July.
    9. Henrik Jensen & Roel M. W. J. Beetsma, 1999. "Optimal Inflation Targets, "Conservative" Central Banks, and Linear Inflation Contracts: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 342-347, March.
    10. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Pesenti, Paolo, 2005. "International dimensions of optimal monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 281-305, March.
    11. Nason James M. & Smith Gregor W, 2008. "Great Moderation(s) and US Interest Rates: Unconditional Evidence," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-33, November.
    12. Vitor Gaspar & Frank Smets, 2002. "Monetary Policy, Price Stability and Output Gap Stabilization," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(2), pages 193-211.
    13. Detken, Carsten & Smets, Frank, 2004. "Asset price booms and monetary policy," Working Paper Series 364, European Central Bank.
    14. Karim Moussaly-Sergieh & Francois Vaillancourt, 2009. "Extra Earning Power: The Financial Returns to University Education in Canada," e-briefs 79, C.D. Howe Institute.
    15. Ben S. Bernanke & Frederic S. Mishkin, 1997. "Inflation Targeting: A New Framework for Monetary Policy?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 97-116, Spring.
    16. Reis, Ricardo, 2005. "A cost-of-living dynamic price index, with an application to indexing retirement accounts," CEPR Discussion Papers 5394, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Michael Parkin, 2009. "What is the Ideal Monetary Policy Regime? Improving the Bank of Canada's Inflation-targeting Program," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 279, January.
    18. William B.P. Robson, 2009. "To the Next Level: From Gold Standard to Inflation Targets - to Price Stability?," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 285, March.
    19. John Crow, 2009. "A Bank for All Seasons: The Bank of Canada and the Regulatory Challenge," e-briefs 82, C.D. Howe Institute.
    20. Colin Busby & William P.B. Robson, 2009. "Equipping Ourselves in Tough times: Canada's Improved Business Investment Performance," e-briefs 83, C.D. Howe Institute.
    21. Richard Clarida & Jordi Gali & Mark Gertler, 2001. "Optimal Monetary Policy in Open versus Closed Economies: An Integrated Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 248-252, May.
    22. Ian Christensen & Frédéric Dion & Christopher Reid, 2004. "Real Return Bonds, Inflation Expectations, and the Break-Even Inflation Rate," Staff Working Papers 04-43, Bank of Canada.
    23. Christopher Ragan, 2005. "The Exchange Rate and Canadian Inflation Targeting," Staff Working Papers 05-34, Bank of Canada.
    24. Christopher Ragan, 2005. "The Exchange Rate and Canadian Inflation Targeting," Bank of Canada Review, Bank of Canada, vol. 2005(Autumn), pages 41-50.
    25. Smets, Frank, 2003. "Maintaining price stability: how long is the medium term?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1293-1309, September.
    26. Benjamin Dachis, 2009. "Low-Carbon Fuel Standards: Driving in the Wrong Direction," e-briefs 80, C.D. Howe Institute.
    27. Gregor W. Smith, 2009. "The Missing Links: Better Measures of Inflation and Inflation Expectations in Canada," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 287, April.
    28. Marc Giannoni & Michael Woodford, 2004. "Optimal Inflation-Targeting Rules," NBER Chapters, in: The Inflation-Targeting Debate, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Robin Banerjee & William B.P. Robson, 2009. "Faster, Younger, Richer? The Fond Hope and Sobering Reality of Immigration's Impact on Canada's Demographic and Economic Future," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 291, July.
    30. Giannoni, Marc P., 2002. "Does Model Uncertainty Justify Caution? Robust Optimal Monetary Policy In A Forward-Looking Model," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 111-144, February.
    31. Lawrence Christiano & Roberto Motto & Massimo Rostagno, 2007. "Two Reasons Why Money and Credit May be Useful in Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 13502, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. William B.P. Robson, 2009. "To the Next Level: From Gold Standard to Inflation Targets - to Price Stability?," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 285, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pierre L. Siklos, 2009. "As Good As It Gets? The International Dimension to Canada's Monetary Policy Strategy Choices," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 292, July.
    2. Gretchen Van Riesen, 2009. "The Pension Tangle: Achieving Greater Uniformity of Pension Legislation and Regulation in Canada," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 294, August.
    3. Philip Arestis & Alexander Mihailov, 2011. "Classifying Monetary Economics: Fields And Methods From Past To Future," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 769-800, September.
    4. Carlos Garcia & Jorge Restrepo & Mr. Scott Roger, 2009. "Hybrid Inflation Targeting Regimes," IMF Working Papers 2009/234, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Jean Boivin & Marc P. Giannoni, 2006. "Has Monetary Policy Become More Effective?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 445-462, August.
    6. Athanasios Orphanides & John C. Williams, 2007. "Inflation targeting under imperfect knowledge," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 1-23.
    7. Poilly, Céline, 2010. "Does money matter for the identification of monetary policy shocks: A DSGE perspective," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2159-2178, October.
    8. Garcia, Carlos J. & Restrepo, Jorge E. & Roger, Scott, 2011. "How much should inflation targeters care about the exchange rate?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(7), pages 1590-1617.
    9. Bilbiie, Florin O., 2014. "Delegating optimal monetary policy inertia," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 63-78.
    10. Waki, Yuichiro & Dennis, Richard & Fujiwara, Ippei, 2018. "The optimal degree of monetary-discretion in a New Keynesian model with private information," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), September.
    11. Marc P. Giannoni & Jean Boivin, 2005. "DSGE Models in a Data-Rich Environment," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 431, Society for Computational Economics.
    12. Stephen J. Cole, 2021. "Learning and the Effectiveness of Central Bank Forward Guidance," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(1), pages 157-200, February.
    13. Marc P. Giannoni, 2019. "Comment on "Optimal Inflation and the Identification of the Phillips Curve"," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2019, volume 34, pages 256-266, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Carrillo, Julio A., 2012. "How well does sticky information explain the dynamics of inflation, output, and real wages?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 830-850.
    15. Kohei Hasui & Tomohiro Sugo & Yuki Teranishi, 2016. "Liquidity Trap and Optimal Monetary Policy Revisited," UTokyo Price Project Working Paper Series 061, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
    16. Orphanides, Athanasios & Williams, John C., 2007. "Robust monetary policy with imperfect knowledge," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(5), pages 1406-1435, July.
    17. Fratzscher, Marcel & Grosse-Steffen, Christoph & Rieth, Malte, 2020. "Inflation targeting as a shock absorber," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    18. Alexander Mihailov, 2007. "Does Instrument Independence Matter under the Constrained Discretionof an Inflation Targeting Goal? Lessons from UK Taylor Rule Empirics," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2006 95, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    19. Roberto M. Billi, 2011. "Optimal Inflation for the US Economy," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 29-52, July.
    20. Lars E. O. Svensson, 2002. "Monetary policy and real stabilization," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 261-312.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    monetary policy; Bank of Canada; inflation targeting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdh:commen:293. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kristine Gray (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdhowca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.