Few will argue against the view that price stability plays an important role in promoting medium- to long-term economic growth. However, a consensus has yet to be gained as to how we should define price stability in the context of monetary policy operations and a desirable rate of inflation. In...

This paper quantifies the policy duration effect of the zero interest rate policy implemented in Japan from February 1999 to August 2000. Our empirical analysis shows that the policy duration effect observed in Japanese financial markets emerged via the expectations channel on the future course...

It is widely recognized that financial market globalization has been developing. International financial markets have expanded substantially, and transaction volumes in foreign exchange markets and capital markets have increased markedly. Progress in information and telecommunications...

In this paper, I survey the existing literature and examine three related questions: (1) What inflation rate constitutes the appropriate target for the central bank? (2) What is an operational definition of price stability for the conduct of monetary policy? (3) What is the policy framework for...

Many empirical studies show common empirical findings that the exchange rate pass-through to import prices in advanced countries declined in the 1990s. Some of those studies, however, draw contrasting conclusions regarding the factors behind the decline. Campa and Goldberg (2002) point out that...

In this paper, we empirically examine the movement of the exchange rate pass-through to the aggregate import prices in Japan from the 1980s through 2001. We demonstrate that the exchange rate pass- through to Japan's import prices fell in the 1990s, and such a decline occurred mainly during the...