IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lsu/lsuwpp/2007-04.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Estimating the Inflation-Output Variability Frontier with Inflation Targeting: A VAR Approach

Author

Abstract

This paper (i) illustrates how a VAR model can be used to evaluate inflation targeting, (ii) derives the policy frontier available to the central bank using counterfactual experiments with real time data, and (iii) estimates how this frontier has changed over time in terms of the position and slope of the available tradeoff between output gap variability and inflation variability under inflation targeting. Various inflation targets are considered as are tolerance bands of varying width around these targets. The results indicate that over time (i) a given reduction in inflation variability is associated with a smaller rise in output variability and that (ii) a given inflation variability is achieved with smaller interest rate volatility. Consistent with the data, our results require federal funds rate persistence, though no instrument instability was observed.

Suggested Citation

  • W. Douglas McMillin & James S. Fackler, 2007. "Estimating the Inflation-Output Variability Frontier with Inflation Targeting: A VAR Approach," Departmental Working Papers 2007-04, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
  • Handle: RePEc:lsu:lsuwpp:2007-04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.lsu.edu/business/economics/files/workingpapers/pap07_04.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mccallum, Bennet T., 1988. "Robustness properties of a rule for monetary policy," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 173-203, January.
    2. Ben S. Bernanke & Ilian Mihov, 1998. "Measuring Monetary Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 113(3), pages 869-902.
    3. Svensson, Lars E. O., 1997. "Inflation forecast targeting: Implementing and monitoring inflation targets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1111-1146, June.
    4. Barro, Robert J & Gordon, David B, 1983. "A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural Rate Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(4), pages 589-610, August.
    5. John B. Taylor, 1994. "The inflation/output variability trade-off revisited," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, vol. 38, pages 21-24.
    6. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    7. Frederic S. Mishkin & Adam S. Posen, 1997. "Inflation targeting: lessons from four countries," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 3(Aug), pages 9-110.
    8. Michael J. Fleming & Kenneth D. Garbade, 2004. "Repurchase agreements with negative interest rates," Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 10(Apr).
    9. Cecchetti, Stephen G, 1988. "The Case of the Negative Nominal Interest Rates: New Estimates of the Term Structure of Interest Rates during the Great Depression," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(6), pages 1111-1141, December.
    10. Nessen, Marianne & Vestin, David, 2005. "Average Inflation Targeting," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(5), pages 837-863, October.
    11. Bernanke, Ben S & Blinder, Alan S, 1992. "The Federal Funds Rate and the Channels of Monetary Transmission," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 901-921, September.
    12. Jean Boivin & Marc Giannoni, 2002. "Assessing changes in the monetary transmission mechanism: a VAR approach," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 8(May), pages 97-111.
    13. Stephen G. Cecchetti & Michael Ehrmann, 2002. "Does Inflation Targeting Increase Output Volatility?: An International Comparison of Policymakers' Preferences and Outcomes," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series (ed.),Monetary Policy: Rules and Transmission Mechanisms, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 9, pages 247-274, Central Bank of Chile.
    14. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    15. Ben S. Bernanke & Frederic S. Mishkin, 1997. "Inflation Targeting: A New Framework for Monetary Policy?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 97-116, Spring.
    16. Aksoy, Yunus & Orphanides, Athanasios & Small, David & Wieland, Volker & Wilcox, David, 2006. "A quantitative exploration of the opportunistic approach to disinflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1877-1893, November.
    17. Marvin Goodfriend, 2004. "Inflation Targeting in the United States?," NBER Chapters, in: The Inflation-Targeting Debate, pages 311-337, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number tayl99-1, August.
    19. Lars E. O. Svensson, 2003. "What Is Wrong with Taylor Rules? Using Judgment in Monetary Policy through Targeting Rules," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 426-477, June.
    20. Michael Woodford, 1999. "Optimal monetary policy inertia," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    21. Charles T. Carlstrom & Timothy S. Fuerst, 2005. "Considerable period of time: the case of signaling future policy," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Nov.
    22. McCallum, Bennett T., 1999. "Issues in the design of monetary policy rules," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 23, pages 1483-1530, Elsevier.
    23. Leitemo, Kai, 2003. "Targeting Inflation by Constant-Interest-Rate Forecasts," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 35(4), pages 609-626, August.
    24. Bernanke, Ben S., 1986. "Alternative explanations of the money-income correlation," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 49-99, January.
    25. Michael Woodford, 1999. "Optimal monetary policy inertia," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    26. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lars E. O. Svensson, 2003. "What Is Wrong with Taylor Rules? Using Judgment in Monetary Policy through Targeting Rules," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 426-477, June.
    2. James S. Fackler & W. Douglas McMillin, 2011. "Inflation Forecast Targeting: An Alternative Approach to Estimating the Inflation‐Output Variability Tradeoff," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 78(2), pages 424-451, October.
    3. Michael Paetz, 2007. "Robust Control and Persistence in the New Keynesian Economy," Quantitative Macroeconomics Working Papers 20711, Hamburg University, Department of Economics.
    4. Lars E. O. Svensson & Michael Woodford, 2004. "Implementing Optimal Policy through Inflation-Forecast Targeting," NBER Chapters, in: The Inflation-Targeting Debate, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Ulf Söderström, 2005. "Targeting Inflation with a Role for Money," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 72(288), pages 577-596, November.
    6. Bennett T. McCallum & Edward Nelson, 2004. "Timeless perspective vs. discretionary monetary policy in forward-looking models," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 86(Mar), pages 43-56.
    7. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777.
    8. Orphanides, Athanasios, 2003. "The quest for prosperity without inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 633-663, April.
    9. Richard Mash, 2003. "New Keynesian Microfoundations Revisited: A Calvo-Taylor-Rule-of-Thumb Model and Optimal Monetary Policy Delegation," Economics Series Working Papers 174, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    10. Gregory E. Givens, 2012. "Estimating Central Bank Preferences under Commitment and Discretion," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(6), pages 1033-1061, September.
    11. Loisel, Olivier, 2021. "The implementation of stabilization policy," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 16(2), May.
    12. Anton Muscatelli & Carmine Trecroci, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules, Policy Preferences, and Uncertainty: Recent Empirical Evidence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(5), pages 597-627, December.
    13. Lars E. O. Svensson, 2003. "What Is Wrong with Taylor Rules? Using Judgment in Monetary Policy through Targeting Rules," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 426-477, June.
    14. Alex Cukierman, 2002. "Are contemporary central banks transparent about economic models and objectives and what difference does it make?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 84(Jul), pages 15-36.
    15. Efrem Castelnuovo, 2002. "Squeezing the Interest Rate Smoothing Weight with a Hybrid Expectations Model," Macroeconomics 0211006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Efrem Castelnuovo & Paolo Surico, 2003. "What does Monetary Policy Reveal about a Central Bank's Preferences?," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 32(3), pages 335-359, November.
    17. Wollmershauser, Timo, 2006. "Should central banks react to exchange rate movements? An analysis of the robustness of simple policy rules under exchange rate uncertainty," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 493-519, September.
    18. Coenen, Gunter & Wieland, Volker, 2005. "A small estimated euro area model with rational expectations and nominal rigidities," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 1081-1104, July.
    19. Marjan Petreski, 2010. "An Overhaul of a Doctrine: Has Inflation Targeting Opened a New Era in Developing-country Peggers?," FIW Working Paper series 057, FIW.
    20. Yvan Lengwiler & Athanasios Orphanides, 2002. "Optimal Discretion," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 104(2), pages 261-276, June.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lsu:lsuwpp:2007-04. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/delsuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.