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A happy "halfway-house"? Medium term inflation targeting in New Zealand

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Author Info
Sam Warburton
Kirdan Lees (Reserve Bank of New Zealand)

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Abstract

The 2002 Policy Targets Agreement (PTA) between the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the government asks the Reserve Bank to target inflation "over the medium term" rather than over an annual target. This medium term objective shifts inflation targeting towards a "halfway-house" between inflation targeting and price level targeting. Extending the inflation averaging horizon to the medium term improves the inflation-output tradeoff by influencing inflation expectations. But how long should the medium term be? Characterizing the New Zealand economy with a small new-Keynesian model, we show that the happiest halfway house is located around a two or three year averaging horizon which leads to mild, but non-trivial, improvements in the efficiency of monetary policy.

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Paper provided by Reserve Bank of New Zealand in its series Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series with number DP2005/03.

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Length: 26 p.
Date of creation: Oct 2005
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Handle: RePEc:nzb:nzbdps:2005/03

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination

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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.:
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  4. Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, 2000. "Habit Formation in Consumption and Its Implications for Monetary-Policy Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 367-390, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Henrik Jensen, 2002. "Targeting Nominal Income Growth or Inflation?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 928-956, September. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Abel, A.B., 1990. "Asset Prices Under Habit Formation And Catching Up With The Joneses," Weiss Center Working Papers 1-90, Wharton School - Weiss Center for International Financial Research.
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  7. Fuhrer, Jeffrey C, 1997. "Inflation/Output Variance Trade-Offs and Optimal Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(2), pages 214-34, May.
  8. Dennis, Richard & Soderstrom, Ulf, 2006. "How Important Is Precommitment for Monetary Policy?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(4), pages 847-872, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Andrew G. Haldane & Nicoletta Batini, 1998. "Forward-Looking Rules for Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 6543, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Svensson, Lars E. O., 1999. "Inflation targeting as a monetary policy rule," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 607-654, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Nessen, Marianne, 2002. "Targeting inflation over the short, medium and long term," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 313-329, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Vestin, David, 2006. "Price-level versus inflation targeting," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1361-1376, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Roberts, John M., 1997. "Is inflation sticky?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 173-196, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Patrick Minford & David Peel, 2003. "Optimal monetary policy: is price-level targeting the next step?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 50(5), pages 650-667, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Carl Walsh, 2003. "Speed Limit Policies: The Output Gap and Optimal Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 265-278, March. [Downloadable!]
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  16. McCallum, Bennett T & Nelson, Edward, 1999. "An Optimizing IS-LM Specification for Monetary Policy and Business Cycle Analysis," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(3), pages 296-316, August.
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  17. Archer, David J., 1997. "The New Zealand approach to rules and discretion in monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 3-15, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Nessen, Marianne & Vestin, David, 2005. "Average Inflation Targeting," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(5), pages 837-63, October.
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Full references

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. Dominick Stephens, 2006. "Should monetary policy attempt to reduce exchange rate volatility in New Zealand?," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2006/05, Reserve Bank of New Zealand. [Downloadable!]
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