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Inflation Targeting under Imperfect Knowledge

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Author Info
Athanasios Orphanides () (Division of Monetary Affairs Federal Reserve Board)
John C. Williams (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco)

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Abstract

The central tenet of inflation targeting is the anchoring of inflation expectations. In this paper, we reexamine the role of key elements of the inflation targeting framework towards this end, in the context of an economy where economic agents have an imperfect understanding of the macroeconomic landscape within which the public forms expectations and policymakers must formulate and implement monetary policy. Using an estimated model of the U.S. economy, we show that monetary policy rules that would perform well under the assumption of rational expectations can perform very poorly when we introduce imperfect knowledge. We then examine the performance of an easily implemented policy rule that incorporates three key characteristics of inflation targeting: transparency, commitment to maintaining price stability, and close monitoring of inflation expectations, and find that all three play an important role in assuring its success. Our analysis suggests simple difference rules in the spirit of Knut Wicksell excel at tethering inflation expectations to the central bank's goal and in so doing achieve superior stabilization of inflation and economic activity in an environment of imperfect knowledge

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Society for Computational Economics in its series Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 with number 38.

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Date of creation: 04 Jul 2006
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Handle: RePEc:sce:scecfa:38

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Related research
Keywords: inflation targeting; learning;

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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

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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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. Marco Lombardi & Silvia Sgherri, 2007. "(Un)naturally Low? Sequential Monte Carlo Tracking of the US Natural Interest Rate," DNB Working Papers 142, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Roc Armenter & Martin Bodenstein, 2006. "Of nutters and doves," International Finance Discussion Papers 885, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  3. Athanasios Orphanides & John C. Williams, 2007. "Robust monetary policy with imperfect knowledge," Working Paper Series 2007-08, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Nelson, Edward, 2007. "The Great Inflation and Early Disinflation in Japan and Germany," CEPR Discussion Papers 6156, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Melecky, Martin & Rodrıguez Palenzuela, Diego & Soderstrom, Ulf, 2008. "Inflation Target Transparency and the Macroeconomy," MPRA Paper 10545, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Athanasios Orphanides & John C. Williams, 2008. "Learning, Expectations Formation, and the Pitfalls of Optimal Control Monetary Policy," Working Papers 2008-3, Central Bank of Cyprus. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Pfajfar, D. & Santoro, E., 2008. "Credit Market Distortions, Asset Prices and Monetary Policy," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0825, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge. [Downloadable!]
  8. Athanasios Orphanides & John C. Williams, 2008. "Imperfect knowledge and the pitfalls of optimal control monetary policy," Working Paper Series 2008-09, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Richard Dennis & Federico Ravenna, 2007. "Learning and optimal monetary policy," Working Paper Series 2007-19, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
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  10. Volker Wieland, 2008. "Learning, Endogenous Indexation, and Disinflation in the New-Keynesian Model," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 493, Central Bank of Chile. [Downloadable!]
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  11. Roberto Tamborini, 2008. "The macroeconomics of imperfect capital markets. Whither saving-investment imbalances?," Department of Economics Working Papers 0815, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia. [Downloadable!]
  12. Athanasios Orphanides, 2007. "Taylor rules," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-18, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  13. Athanasios Orphanides & John C. Williams, 2005. "Monetary policy with imperfect knowledge," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-51, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  14. Yu-chin Chen & Pisut Kulthanavit, 2007. "Adaptive Learning and Monetary Policy: Lessons from Japan," Working Papers UWEC-2008-12, University of Washington, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  15. Janet L. Yellen, 2006. "Enhancing Fed credibility," Speech, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar. 13. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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