Inflation Targeting in Brazil: Lessons and Challenges

This paper assesses the first three years of the inflation-targeting regime in Brazil adopted in July 1999. The inflation-targeting framework has shown to be highly important for the macroeconomic stabilization. We stress three important challenges: construction of credibility, change in relative prices, and exchange rate volatility. The estimations indicate the following results: i) the inflation targets have worked as an important coordinator of expectations; ii) the Central Bank has reacted strongly to inflation expectations; iii) there has been a reduction in the degree of persistence in inflation and in the volatility of inflation and output; iv) the exchange rate pass-through for "administered or monitored" prices is more than two times higher than for "market" prices. We also describe the methodology the Central Bank has developed to deal with inflationary shocks, which quantifies the sources of inflation, and examine some issues involved in the institutional design of inflation targeting.