Inflation Targeting in Armenia: Monetary Policy in Transition

As the monetary and financial systems in transition economies have evolved so have monetary policies. Many central banks have followed a course from exchange rate targeting, to targeting monetary aggregates to targeting inflation. We examine the development of monetary policy in Armenia, a small, open transition economy that adopted inflation targeting in January 2006. First, we review monetary policy in Armenia. Then we evaluate the capacity of the Central Bank of Armenia to implement inflation targeting. Finally, we estimate and simulate reaction functions to evaluate the effectiveness of monetary policy. We find that the Central Bank may have been overly restrictive. Comparative Economic Studies (2008) 50, 421–437. doi:10.1057/ces.2008.22