This paper analyzes the optimal choice of the length of time over which the monetary authority targets money growth, in a setting where the monetary authority’s lack of credibility potentially gives rise to an inflationary bias. When the monetary authority has some private information-e.g. a private forecast-that obscures the relevance of reputational considerations and the effectiveness of legislation to enforce the efficient policy, the targeting procedure serves as a device to diminish the inflationary bias while providing the monetary authority limited flexibility to react to its private information. The analysis strengthens the monetarist proposition that the monetary authority should follow a strict rule. Even when the monetary authority has a fairly accurate forecasting technology, the optimal targeting period can be very short, implying that limited or no flexibility in monetary policy would be optimal.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in its series Working Papers with number
1990-001.
Length: Date of creation: 1990 Date of revision: Publication status: Published in American Economic Review, March 1993 Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:1990-001
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)