IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bcb/wpaper/271.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimal Policy When the Inflation Target is not Optimal

Author

Listed:
  • Sergio A. Lago Alves

Abstract

I assess the optimal policy to be followed by a welfare-concerned central bank when assigned an inflation target that is not necessarily welfare-optimal. I treat the inflation target as the trend inflation and I have three main contributions: (i) a welfare-based loss function fully derived under trend inflation, showing how the non-optimal inflation target acts as an extra inefficiency source; (ii) I show that the trend inflation does affect the relative weight of the output gap: they are inversely related; (iii) under trend inflation, I derive time consistent optimal policies with both unconditional and timeless commitment, and I show how to translate the pursuit of the inflation target into an additional constraint in the minimization step.

Suggested Citation

  • Sergio A. Lago Alves, 2012. "Optimal Policy When the Inflation Target is not Optimal," Working Papers Series 271, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:bcb:wpaper:271
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bcb.gov.br/content/publicacoes/WorkingPaperSeries/wps271.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter J. Klenow & Oleksiy Kryvtsov, 2008. "State-Dependent or Time-Dependent Pricing: Does it Matter for Recent U.S. Inflation?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 863-904.
    2. Mark Bils & Peter J. Klenow, 2004. "Some Evidence on the Importance of Sticky Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 947-985, October.
    3. Guido Ascari & Tiziano Ropele, 2009. "Trend Inflation, Taylor Principle, and Indeterminacy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(8), pages 1557-1584, December.
    4. Damjanovic, Tatiana & Damjanovic, Vladislav & Nolan, Charles, 2008. "Unconditionally optimal monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 491-500, April.
    5. Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2007. "Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 586-606, June.
    6. Argia M. Sbordone & Timothy Cogley, 2004. "A Search for a Structural Phillips Curve," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 291, Society for Computational Economics.
    7. Gill Hammond, 2012. "State of the art of inflation targeting," Handbooks, Centre for Central Banking Studies, Bank of England, edition 4, number 29, April.
    8. Sergio A. L. Alves & Waldyr D. Areosa, 2005. "Targets and Inflation Dynamics," Working Papers Series 100, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    9. Warne, Anders & Coenen, Günter & Christoffel, Kai, 2008. "The new area-wide model of the euro area: a micro-founded open-economy model for forecasting and policy analysis," Working Paper Series 944, European Central Bank.
    10. Klenow, Peter J. & Malin, Benjamin A., 2010. "Microeconomic Evidence on Price-Setting," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 6, pages 231-284, Elsevier.
    11. Ascari, Guido & Ropele, Tiziano, 2007. "Optimal monetary policy under low trend inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2568-2583, November.
    12. Andrew T. Levin & Alexei Onatski & John Williams & Noah M. Williams, 2006. "Monetary Policy under Uncertainty in Micro-Founded Macroeconometric Models," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2005, Volume 20, pages 229-312, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé & Martín Uribe, 2006. "Optimal Simple and Implementable Monetary and Fiscal Rules: Expanded Version," NBER Working Papers 12402, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2011. "Monetary Policy, Trend Inflation, and the Great Moderation: An Alternative Interpretation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 341-370, February.
    15. 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.
    16. Stephen Murchison & Andrew Rennison, 2006. "ToTEM: The Bank of Canada's New Quarterly Projection Model," Technical Reports 97, Bank of Canada.
    17. Jensen, Christian & McCallum, Bennett T., 2002. "The non-optimality of proposed monetary policy rules under timeless perspective commitment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 163-168, October.
    18. Sahuc, Jean-Guillaume, 2006. "Partial indexation, trend inflation, and the hybrid Phillips curve," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 42-50, January.
    19. Tovar, Camilo Ernesto, 2009. "DSGE Models and Central Banks," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-31.
    20. Krishna Rao & Argia M. Sbordone & Andrea Tambalotti & Kieran Walsh, 2010. "Policy analysis using DSGE models: an introduction," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 16(Oct), pages 23-43.
    21. Maral Kichian & Oleksiy Kryvtsov, 2007. "Does Indexation Bias the Estimated Frequency of Price Adjustment?," Staff Working Papers 07-15, Bank of Canada.
    22. repec:sae:niesru:v:164:y::i:1:p:100-109 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Argia M. Sbordone & Timothy Cogley, 2004. "A Search for a Structural Phillips Curve," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 291, Society for Computational Economics.
    24. Robert Amano & Steve Ambler & Nooman Rebei, 2007. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Nonzero Trend Inflation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(7), pages 1821-1838, October.
    25. Yun, Tack, 1996. "Nominal price rigidity, money supply endogeneity, and business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 345-370, April.
    26. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2008. "Five Facts about Prices: A Reevaluation of Menu Cost Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(4), pages 1415-1464.
    27. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nakata, Taisuke, 2014. "Welfare costs of shifting trend inflation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 66-78.
    2. Guido Ascari & Argia M. Sbordone, 2014. "The Macroeconomics of Trend Inflation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 679-739, September.
    3. Alves, Sergio Afonso Lago, 2014. "Lack of divine coincidence in New Keynesian models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 33-46.
    4. Sergio A. Lago Alves, 2012. "Trend Inflation and the Unemployment Volatility Puzzle," Working Papers Series 277, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    5. Bruno Martins, 2012. "Local Market Structure and Bank Competition: evidence from the Brazilian auto loan market," Working Papers Series 299, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    6. Angelo Marsiglia Fasolo, 2012. "A Note on Particle Filters Applied to DSGE Models," Working Papers Series 281, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    7. Carl E. Walsh, 2011. "The Future of Inflation Targeting," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 87(s1), pages 23-36, September.
    8. Hasui, Kohei, 2020. "A Note On Robust Monetary Policy And Non-Zero Trend Inflation," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(6), pages 1574-1594, September.
    9. Waldyr Areosa & Marta Areosa, 2012. "Information (in) Chains: information transmission through production chains," Working Papers Series 286, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.

    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. Alves, Sergio Afonso Lago, 2014. "Lack of divine coincidence in New Keynesian models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 33-46.
    2. Sergio A. Lago Alves, 2018. "Monetary Policy, Trend Inflation, and Unemployment Volatility," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(4), pages 637-673, June.
    3. Sergio A. Lago Alves, 2012. "Trend Inflation and the Unemployment Volatility Puzzle," Working Papers Series 277, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    4. Guido Ascari & Argia M. Sbordone, 2014. "The Macroeconomics of Trend Inflation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 679-739, September.
    5. Gbaguidi DAVID, 2011. "Expectations Impact On The Effectiveness Of The Inflation-Real Activity Trade-Off," Theoretical and Practical Research in the Economic Fields, ASERS Publishing, vol. 2(2), pages 141-181.
    6. Gbaguidi, David Sedo, 2011. "Regime Switching in a New Keynesian Phillips Curve with Non-zero Steady-state Inflation Rate," MPRA Paper 35481, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Yasufumi Gemma & Takushi Kurozumi & Mototsugu Shintani, 2023. "Trend Inflation and Evolving Inflation Dynamics:A Bayesian GMM Analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 506-520, December.
    8. Yasuo Hirose & Takushi Kurozumi & Willem Van Zandweghe, 2020. "Monetary Policy and Macroeconomic Stability Revisited," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 37, pages 255-274, July.
    9. Ascari, Guido & Castelnuovo, Efrem & Rossi, Lorenza, 2011. "Calvo vs. Rotemberg in a trend inflation world: An empirical investigation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 1852-1867.
    10. Takushi Kurozumi & Willem Van Zandweghe, 2016. "Kinked Demand Curves, the Natural Rate Hypothesis, and Macroeconomic Stability," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 20, pages 240-257, April.
    11. Gbaguidi, David, 2012. "La courbe de Phillips : temps d’arbitrage et/ou arbitrage de temps," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 88(1), pages 87-119, mars.
    12. Michael Weber, 2014. "Nominal Rigidities and Asset Pricing," 2014 Meeting Papers 53, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Olmos, Lorena & Sanso Frago, Marcos, 2014. "Monetary policy and growth with trend inflation and financial frictions," MPRA Paper 54606, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Takushi Kurozumi & Willem Van Zandweghe, 2014. "A pitfall of expectational stability analysis," Research Working Paper RWP 14-7, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    15. Schmitt-Grohé, Stephanie & Uribe, Martín, 2010. "The Optimal Rate of Inflation," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 13, pages 653-722, Elsevier.
    16. Juillard, Michael & Kamenik, Ondra & Kumhof, Michael & Laxton, Douglas, 2008. "Optimal price setting and inflation inertia in a rational expectations model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 2584-2621, August.
    17. Takushi Kurozumi, 2016. "Endogenous Price Stickiness, Trend Inflation, and Macroeconomic Stability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(6), pages 1267-1291, September.
    18. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, 2010. "The econometrics of DSGE models," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 3-49, March.
    19. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2011. "Monetary Policy, Trend Inflation, and the Great Moderation: An Alternative Interpretation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 341-370, February.
    20. Stepahnie Schmitt-Grohé & Martín Uribe, 2007. "Optimal Inflation Stabilization in a Medium-Scale Macroeconomic Model," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Frederic S. Miskin & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Se (ed.),Monetary Policy under Inflation Targeting, edition 1, volume 11, chapter 5, pages 125-186, Central Bank of Chile.

    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:bcb:wpaper:271. 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: Rodrigo Barbone Gonzalez (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.bcb.gov.br/en .

    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.