Opponents of inflation targeting have argued that a commitment to a numerical inflation target reduces policy's stabilization flexibility - increasing output volatility under supply shocks. Using a novel game theoretic approach our paper demonstrates that this claim may fail to account for the "anchoring" effect of explicit targets on expectations and wages. Under a credible long-term inflation target and costly acquiring information/wage resetting the public may find it optimal to "look-through" shocks. This makes the policymaker's short-term interest rate instrument more effective in output stabilisation giving it greater leverage over the real rate. As a consequence, the variability trade-off is improved, i.e. volatility of both inflation and output is rediced in equilibrium. Our analysis thus adds another dimenstion to the "rule vs. discretion debate" by showing that a long-run rule may be compatible with (and in fact enhance the effectiveness of) short-run discretion. We conclude by showing that our results are consistent with several empirical findings of the literature.
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Paper provided by Australian National University, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis in its series CAMA Working Papers with number
2006-02.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
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