Inflation Targeting and Target Instability

<p>Monetary policy is modeled as being governed by a known rule except for a time-varying target rate of inflation. The variable target can be thought of either as standing in for discretionary deviations from the rule or as the outcome of a policymaking committee that is unable to arrive at a consensus. Stochastic simulations of FRB/US the Board of Governors' large rational-expectations model of the U.S. economy are used to examine the benefits of reducing the variability in the target rate of inflation. We find that putting credible boundaries on target variability introduces an important nonlinearity in expectations. The effect of this is to improve policy performance by focusing agents' expectations on policy objectives. But improvements are limited; it does not generally pay to reduce target variability to zero. More important this nonlinearity in expectations allows for policy to be conducted at the margin with greater attention to output stabilization than would otherwise be the case. The results provide insights as to why inflation-targeting countries use bands and why the bands they use are narrower than studies suggest they should be. A side benefit of the paper is the demonstration of a numerical technique that approximates to arbitrary precision a nonlinear process with a linear method thereby greatly speeding and making more robust the computation of simulation results.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p>