Inflation Targeting – Lessons from the International Experience - Hardcover

Bernanke, Ben S

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691059551 ISBN 13: 9780691059556

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1998

Synopsis

How should governments and central banks use monetary policy to create a healthy economy? Traditionally, policymakers have used such strategies as controlling the growth of the money supply or pegging the exchange rate to a stable currency. In recent years a promising new approach has emerged: publicly announcing and pursuing specific targets for the rate of inflation. This book is a study of inflation targeting. Combining theoretical analysis with empirical studies of countries where inflation targeting has been adopted, the authors show that the strategy has clear advantages over traditional policies. They argue that the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank should adopt this strategy, and they make specific proposals for doing so. The authors warn, however, that the success of inflation targeting depends on operational details, such as how the targets are defined and when they are announced. They also show that inflation targeting is not a panacea that can make inflation perfectly predictable or reduce it without economic costs.

About this title

About the Author

Ben S. Bernanke is Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Thomas Laubach is an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Frederic S. Mishkin is A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, and former Director of Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Adam S. Posen is Research Associate at the Institute for International Economics.

From the Back Cover

"The most accessible study of this important new monetary regime--accessible to a wide range of readers well beyond the ranks of professional economists. [Inflation Targeting] should, and is intended to, appeal to historians, political scientists, international-relations students, politicians, central bankers, journalists, as well as to economists and to undergraduates at any level of sophistication."--C.A.E. Goodhart, London School of Economics and external member of the United Kingdom's Monetary Policy Committee

From the Inside Flap

"The most accessible study of this important new monetary regime--accessible to a wide range of readers well beyond the ranks of professional economists. [Inflation Targeting] should, and is intended to, appeal to historians, political scientists, international-relations students, politicians, central bankers, journalists, as well as to economists and to undergraduates at any level of sophistication."--C.A.E. Goodhart, London School of Economics and external member of the United Kingdom's Monetary Policy Committee

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691059551
• ISBN 13: 9780691059556
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 392