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A Comparison of Product Price Targeting and Other Monetary Anchor Options, for Commodity Exporters in Latin America

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  • Frankel, Jeffrey A.

    (Harvard University)

Abstract

Seven possible nominal variables are considered as candidates to be the anchor or target for monetary policy. The context is countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), which tend to be price takers on world markets, to produce commodity exports subject to volatile terms of trade, and to experience procyclical international finance. Three anchor candidates are exchange rate pegs: to the dollar, euro and SDR. One candidate is orthodox Inflation Targeting. Three candidates represent proposals for a new sort of inflation targeting that differs from the usual focus on the CPI, in that prices of export commodities are given substantial weight and prices of imports are not: PEP (Peg the Export Price), PEPI (Peg an Export Price Index), and PPT (Product Price Targeting). The selling point of these production-based price indices is that each could serve as a nominal anchor while yet accommodating terms of trade shocks, in comparison to a CPI target. CPI-targeters such as Brazil, Chile, and Peru are observed to respond to increases in world prices of imported oil with monetary policy that is sufficiently tight to appreciate their currencies, an undesirable property, which is the opposite of accommodating the terms of trade. As hypothesized, a product price target generally does a better job of stabilizing the real domestic prices of tradable goods than does a CPI target. Bottom line: A Product Price Targeter would appreciate in response to an increase in world prices of its commodity exports, not in response to an increase in world prices of its imports. CPI targeting gets this backwards.

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Paper provided by Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government in its series Working Paper Series with number rwp11-027.

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Date of creation: Jul 2011
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Handle: RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp11-027

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  1. Arminio Fraga & Ilan Goldfajn & Andre Minella, 2003. "Inflation Targeting in Emerging Market Economies," NBER Working Papers 10019, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Graciela L. Kaminsky & Carmen M. Reinhart & Carlos A. Vegh, 2004. "When it Rains, it Pours: Procyclical Capital Flows and Macroeconomic Policies," NBER Working Papers 10780, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Aizenman, Joshua & Jinjarak, Yothin, 2008. "Current account patterns and national real estate markets," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt1rh4s127, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
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  5. Jean-François Segalotto & Marco Arnone & Bernard Laurens, 2006. "Measures of Central Bank Autonomy: Empirical Evidence for OECD, Developing, and Emerging Market Economies," IMF Working Papers 06/228, International Monetary Fund.
  6. Collins, Susan M., 1996. "On becoming more flexible: Exchange rate regimes in Latin America and the Caribbean," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 117-138, October.
  7. Warwick J. McKibbin & Kanhaiya Singh, 2000. "Issues in the Choice of a Monetary Regime for India," ASARC Working Papers 2000-01, The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre.
  8. Edwin M. Truman, 2003. "Inflation Targeting in the World Economy," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 346, 1st quart.
  9. Broda, Christian, 2004. "Terms of trade and exchange rate regimes in developing countries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 31-58, May.
  10. Frankel, Jeffrey & Saiki, Ayako, 2002. "A Proposal to Anchor Monetary Policy by the Price of the Export Commodity," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 17, pages 417-448.
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