Monetary policy under discretion or commitment? : an empirical study

In this paper, I investigate the monetary policy of five industrialized countries which have had explicit inflation targets for more than 15 years. Considering the case of discretionary policy as well as commitment, I estimate two first order conditions. The results support the theory of flexible inflation targeting under discretion for the United Kingdom. For New Zealand, the results under discretion suggests that monetary policymakers have been leaning with the wind rather than against the wind. The central banks of Canada, Sweden, and Australia have behaved in line with the theory of flexible inflation targeting under commitment. -- Inflation targeting ; optimal policy under discretion ; optimal policy under commitment