This study shows that the private sector accurately predicts short-term interest rate targets set by the Brazilian monetary authorities. With increased transparency under inflation targeting, such evidence suggests that the public perceives the central bank as credible.

In 1991, Canada became the second country to adopt an inflation target as a central pillar of its monetary policy framework. The regime has proven much more successful than initially expected, both in achieving price stability and in stabilizing the real economy against a wide range of shocks....

We use a standard new Keynesian model to evaluate the cost of disinflation - measured by the sacrifice ratio, the central bank's loss function, and the welfare cost - in a small open economy vis-à-vis a closed economy. Disinflation is either more costly or less beneficial in the small open...

Monetary policy instruments differ in tightness-how closely they are linked to inflation-and transparency-how easily they can be monitored. Tightness is always desirable in a monetary policy instrument; when is transparency? When a government cannot commit to follow a given policy. We apply this...

Monetary policy governance - how monetary policy objectives are determined, how decisions are made and who makes them - determines the quality and effectiveness of monetary policy decisions. In this paper, we examine some desirable and some adverse outcomes associated with different governance...

This paper develops a simple intertemporal model of inflation targets within a framework in which the public is uncertain about the dependability of policymakers, and in which policymakers do not perfectly control inflation. The framework is used to evaluate the effects of various parameters...

In Canada, targeting the inflation rate was intended as a temporary measure on a journey to price-level stability, but became a well-established monetary policy regime in its own right. This paper analyses the role of the interaction of economic ideas with the experience generated by their...