This paper asks whether inflation targeting improves economic performance, as measured by the behavior of inflation, output, and interest rates. We compare 7 OECD countries that adopted inflation targeting in the early 1990s to 13 that did not. After the early 1990s, performance improved along many dimensions for both targeting and nontargeting countries. In some cases, the targeters improved by more. However, these differences are explained by the fact that targeters performed worse than nontargeters before the early 1990s, and there is regression towards the mean. Once one controls for this, there is no evidence that inflation targeting improves performance.
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Paper provided by International Monetary Fund in its series IMF Working Papers with number
03/129.
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.:
Manfred J.M. Neumann & Jrgen von Hagen, 2002.
"Does inflation targeting matter?,"
Review,
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Jul, pages 127-148.
[Downloadable!]
Laurence M. Ball, 1997.
"Disinflation and the NAIRU,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy, pages 167-194
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!]
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.) This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.