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What Measure of Inflation Should a Central Bank Target?

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Author Info
N. Gregory Mankiw
Ricardo Reis

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Abstract

This paper assumes that a central bank commits itself to maintaining an inflation target and then asks what measure of the inflation rate the central bank should use if it wants to maximize economic stability. The paper first formalizes this problem and examines its microeconimic foundations. It then shows how the weight of a sector in the stability price index depends on the sector's characteristics, including size, cyclical sensitivity, sluggishness of price adjustment, and magnitude of sectoral shocks. When a numerical illustration of the problem is calibrated to U. S. data, one tentative conclusion is that a central bank that wants to achieve maximum stability of economic activity should use a price index that gives substantial weight to the level of nominal wages.

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Paper provided by Harvard - Institute of Economic Research in its series Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers with number 1984.

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Date of creation: 2002
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Handle: RePEc:fth:harver:1984

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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.:
  1. Benigno, Pierpaolo, 2001. "Optimal Monetary Policy in a Currency Area," CEPR Discussion Papers 2755, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Aoki, Kosuke, 2001. "Optimal monetary policy responses to relative-price changes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 55-80, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Julio J. Rotemberg & Michael Woodford, 1999. "The Cyclical Behavior of Prices and Costs," NBER Working Papers 6909, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2001. "Sticky Information Versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," NBER Working Papers 8290, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Spence, Michael, 1976. "Product Selection, Fixed Costs, and Monopolistic Competition," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(2), pages 217-35, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Michael Woodford, 2002. "Inflation Stabilization and Welfare," Contributions to Macroeconomics, Berkeley Electronic Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1009-1009. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Michael Woodford, 1994. "Structural Slumps," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1784-1815, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Steinsson, Jon, 2003. "Optimal monetary policy in an economy with inflation persistence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(7), pages 1425-1456, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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.)

  1. Bhattacharya, Joydeep & Singh, Rajesh, 2005. "Optimal Choice of Monetary Instruments in an Economy with Real and Liquidity Shocks," Staff General Research Papers 12355, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
  2. Luis-Felipe Zanna & Marco Airaudo, 2005. "Learning about which measure of inflation to target," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 176, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. Kevin X.D. Huang & Zheng Liu, 2004. "Inflation to target : what inflation to target?," Research Working Paper RWP 03-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. [Downloadable!]
  4. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Philip Arestis & Alexander Mihailov, 2007. "Flexible Rules cum Constrained Discretion: A New Consensus in Monetary Policy," Economics & Management Discussion Papers em-dp2007-53, School of Business, Reading University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Dixon, Huw & Kara, Engin, 2007. "Persistence and Nominal Inertia in a Generalized Taylor Economy: How Longer Contracts Dominate Shorter Contracts," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2007/1, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section. [Downloadable!]
  7. Luis-Felipe Zanna, 2003. "Interest rate rules and multiple equilibria in the small open economy," International Finance Discussion Papers 785, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  8. Alistair Dieppe & Keith Küster & Peter McAdam, 2004. "Optimal monetary policy rules for the euro area: an analysis using the area wide model," Working Paper Series 360, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 2006. "The Effect of Monetary Policy on Real Commodity Prices," NBER Working Papers 12713, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Huw Dixon & Engin Kara, 2007. "Persistence and Nominal Inertia in a Generalized Taylor Economy: How Longer Contracts Dominate Shorter Contracts," Discussion Papers 07-01, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  11. Mark A. Wynne, 2008. "How should central banks define price stability?," Globalization and Monetary Policy Institute Working Paper 08, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. [Downloadable!]
  12. Bergljot Barkbu & Vincenzo Cassino & Aileen Gosselin-Lotz & Laura Piscitelli, . "The New Keynesian Phillips Curve in the United States and the euro area: aggregation bias, stability and robustness," Bank of England working papers 285, Bank of England. [Downloadable!]
  13. William Whitesell, 2005. "An inflation goal with multiple reference measures," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-62, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  14. Matthias Paustian, 2004. "Welfare Effects of Monetary Policy Rules in a Model with Nominal Rigidities and Credit Market Frictions," Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings 597, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
  15. M. Correa Lopez, 2004. "Macroeconomic Effects of Oligopolistic Competition with Wage Bargaining," Economics Discussion Papers 577, University of Essex, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  16. Jonsson, Magnus & Palmqvist, Stefan, 2003. "Inflation, Markups and Monetary Policy," Working Paper Series 148, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden). [Downloadable!]
  17. Paul McNelis & Peter McAdam, 2004. "Forecasting inflation with thick models and neural networks," Working Paper Series 352, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  18. Gregory E. Givens, 2006. "Revisiting the Delegation Problem in a Sticky Price and Wage Economy," Working Papers 200601, Middle Tennessee State University, Department of Economics and Finance. [Downloadable!]
  19. Ricardo Reis & Mark W. Watson, 2007. "Measuring changes in the value of the numeraire," Kiel Working Papers 1364, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. [Downloadable!]
  20. Charemza , Wojciech W. & Makarov, Svetlana, 2005. "Ex-ante dynamics of real effects of monetary policy: Theory and evidence for Poland and Russia, 2001-2003," BOFIT Discussion Papers 20/2005, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition. [Downloadable!]
  21. Kevin X.D. Huang & Zheng Liu, 2003. "Inflation Targeting: What Inflation to Target?," Emory Economics 0318, Department of Economics, Emory University (Atlanta). [Downloadable!]
  22. Alan S. Blinder & Ricardo Reis, 2005. "Understanding the Greenspan standard," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Aug, pages 11-96. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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