IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/chb/bcchwp/390.html

The Quest for Price Stability in Central America and the Dominican Republic

Author

Listed:
  • Luis Jácome
  • Eric Parrado

Abstract

Why hasn’t inflation converged to price stability in Central America and the Dominican Republic? Why is it currently still high by Latin American standards? This paper addresses these questions, and finds that despite the institutional strengthening of monetary policy, important flaws remain in most central banks, in particular the lack of a clear policy mandate and little political autonomy, which are hurting the consistency of policy implementation. Empirical analysis reveals that all central banks raise interest rates to curtail inflation, but only some of them make large enough increases to effectively tackle inflation pressures. It also shows that some central banks care simultaneously about exchange rate stability. The potential policy conflict arising from a dual central bank mandate and the unpredictable policy response is probably undermining market confidence in central banks’ commitment to price stability, thereby perpetuating an inflation bias.

Suggested Citation

  • Luis Jácome & Eric Parrado, 2006. "The Quest for Price Stability in Central America and the Dominican Republic," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 390, Central Bank of Chile.
    • Handle: RePEc:chb:bcchwp:390
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bcentral.cl/documents/33528/133326/DTBC_390.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mr. Luis Ignacio Jácome & Mr. Francisco F. Vazquez, 2005. "Any Link Between Legal Central Bank Independence and Inflation? Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean," IMF Working Papers 2005/075, International Monetary Fund.
    2. 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.
    3. Guillermo A. Calvo & Carmen M. Reinhart, 2002. "Fear of Floating," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(2), pages 379-408.
    4. Agustín Carstens & Luis I. Jácome, 2005. "The 1990s Institutional Reform of Monetary Policy in Latin America," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 343, Central Bank of Chile.
    5. Alex Cukierman, 1992. "Central Bank Strategy, Credibility, and Independence: Theory and Evidence," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262031981, December.
    6. Cukierman Alex, 1992. "CENTRAL BANK STRATEGY, CREDIBILITY, AND INDEPENDANCE: THEORY AND EVIDENCE: Compte Rendu par Dominique Cariofillo," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 3(4), pages 581-590, December.
    7. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December.
    8. Mr. Markus Rodlauer & Mr. Alfred Schipke, 2005. "Central America: Global Integration and Regional Cooperation," IMF Occasional Papers 2005/005, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Barry Eichengreen, 2006. "Can Emerging Markets Float? Should They Inflation Target?," Chapters, in: Matías Vernengo (ed.), Monetary Integration and Dollarization, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Mr. Eric Parrado, 2004. "Singapore's Unique Monetary Policy: How Does it Work?," IMF Working Papers 2004/010, International Monetary Fund.
    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. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Pablo Mendieta Ossio, 2010. "The renaissance of Friedman hypothesis: nature of global financial crisis and consequences in a small open and highly dollarized economy," Revista de Análisis del BCB, Banco Central de Bolivia, vol. 13(1), pages 119-151, December.
    3. Julien Pinter, 2018. "Does Central Bank Financial Strength Really Matter for Inflation? The Key Role of the Fiscal Support," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 29(5), pages 911-952, November.
    4. Luis F. Cernadas & E. René Aldazosa, 2011. "Estimación de una función de reacción para la política monetaria en Bolivia," Monetaria, CEMLA, vol. 0(1), pages 1-36, enero-mar.
    5. repec:mbr:jmonec:v:8:y:2013:i:1:p:1-30 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Åke Lönnberg & Mr. Peter Stella, 2008. "Issues in Central Bank Finance and Independence," IMF Working Papers 2008/037, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Ariadne M. Checo & Salomé Pradel & Francisco A. Ramírez, 2017. "The Effects of USA Monetary Policy on Central America and the Dominican Republic," Investigación Conjunta-Joint Research, in: Ángel Estrada García & Alberto Ortiz Bolaños (ed.), International Spillovers of Monetary Policy, edition 1, chapter 7, pages 189-222, Centro de Estudios Monetarios Latinoamericanos, CEMLA.
    8. Ms. Stephanie C Medina Cas & Mr. Alejandro Carrion-Menendez & Ms. Florencia Frantischek, 2011. "The Policy Interest-Rate Pass-Through in Central America," IMF Working Papers 2011/240, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Ake Lonnberg & Peter Stella, 2008. "Issues in central bank finance and independence," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2008-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

    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. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777, August.
    2. Cukierman, Alex, 2008. "Central bank independence and monetary policymaking institutions -- Past, present and future," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 722-736, December.
    3. Crowe, Christopher & Meade, Ellen E., 2008. "Central bank independence and transparency: Evolution and effectiveness," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 763-777, December.
    4. Alberto Alesina & Robert J. Barro & Silvana Tenreyro, 2003. "Optimal Currency Areas," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2002, Volume 17, pages 301-356, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Da Silva, Sergio & Nunes, Mauricio, 2007. "Latin American foreign exchange intervention - Updated," MPRA Paper 1982, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Klomp, Jeroen & de Haan, Jakob, 2010. "Do central bank law reforms affect the term in office of central bank governors?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 106(3), pages 219-222, March.
    7. Adamcik, Santiago, 2008. "Sobre la Elección de Regímenes de Tipo de Cambio en Economías Emergentes [On Choosing an Exchange Rate Regimes in Emerging Economies]," MPRA Paper 9329, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Guillermo A. Calvo & Frederic S. Mishkin, 2003. "The Mirage of Exchange Rate Regimes for Emerging Market Countries," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 99-118, Fall.
    9. Cleomar Gomes da silva & Flavio V. Vieira, 2016. "Monetary policy decision making: the role of ideology, institutions and central bank independence," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(4), pages 2051-2062.
    10. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff & Miguel A. Savastano, 2014. "Addicted to Dollars," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 15(1), pages 1-51, May.
    11. Bofinger, Peter & Mayer, Eric & Wollmershäuser, Timo, 2002. "The BMW model: Simple macroeconomics for closed and open economies a requiem for the IS/LM-AS/AD and the Mundell-Fleming model," W.E.P. - Würzburg Economic Papers 35, University of Würzburg, Department of Economics.
    12. Mehrotra, Aaron & Sánchez-Fung, José R., 2011. "Assessing McCallum and Taylor rules in a cross-section of emerging market economies," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 207-228, April.
    13. Fabien Durringer, 2009. "The Trilemma: An Empirical Assessment over 35 years since the 1970s," Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series gd09-069, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    14. Michael D. Bordo & Pierre L. Siklos, 2015. "Central Bank Credibility: An Historical and Quantitative Exploration," NBER Working Papers 20824, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Masciandaro, Donato & Romelli, Davide, 2015. "Ups and downs of central bank independence from the Great Inflation to the Great Recession: theory, institutions and empirics," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(3), pages 259-289, December.
    16. Vittorio Corbo, 2002. "Monetary Policy in Latin America in the 90s," 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 6, pages 117-166, Central Bank of Chile.
    17. Nogueira, Veridiana de Andrade & Mori, Rogério & Marçal, Emerson Fernandes, 2013. "Transmissão da variação cambial para as taxas de inflação no Brasil: estimação do pass-through através de modelos de vetores autorregressivos estruturais com correção de erros," Textos para discussão 349, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    18. John Driffill & Zeno Rotondi, 2007. "Inertia in Taylor Rules," Birkbeck Working Papers in Economics and Finance 0720, Birkbeck, Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics.
    19. Luis Felipe Céspedes C. & Rodrigo Valdés P., 2006. "Central Bank Autonomy: the Chilean Experience," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 9(1), pages 25-47, April.
    20. Aleksandra A. Maslowska, 2011. "Quest for the Best: How to Measure Central Bank Independence and Show its Relationship with Inflation," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 5(2), pages 132-161, August.

    More about this item

    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:chb:bcchwp:390. 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: Alvaro Castillo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bccgvcl.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.