Inflation Targeting in New Zealand: The 1987 Reserve Bank Questionnaire and Related Documents

New Zealand is acknowledged widely as the first country to implement a formal monetary policy agreement specifying an explicit inflation target. This agreement, signed in March 1990 between the Minister of Finance and the Governor of the Bank, was implemented under Section 9 of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989. By 2014, inflation targeting agreements had been established, in several forms, in more than 25 countries. During the evolving 1984-1989 price stability and inflation targeting deliberations in New Zealand, a survey of Reserve Bank economists in early 1987 included the question 'Should the Bank have an explicitly-stated desired inflation time path?' This paper is primarily a record of the background and responses to this question. It also includes the original documents and related material.