On rhetoric and being realistic about the monetary policy of developing countries

This paper focuses on economists' aspirations to apprehend the reality of the economy that they seek to study, while economic processes are largely beyond the boundaries of perception. It is recognized that engaging in dialogue with each other and with policymakers forces economists into compromise with conventional wisdom by rhetoric. We explore how questions beyond the boundaries of realist perception are commonly tackled in contemporary monetary analysis by axiomatic reasoning and mimesis (the proliferation of models that can mimic the evolution of particular variables). This provides a shared numerical discourse, but cannot overcome the problem of realistic understanding. It is argued that this is a particular difficulty in the case of monetary policy in emerging and developing countries, where policy dependence on external financial support places a premium on the rhetorical conventions of global financial centres. JEL Classifications: B41, E42, O16