CENTRAL BANK POLICY MIX: KEY CONCEPTS AND INDONESIA’S EXPERIENCE

Abstract

The global crisis brings about renewed reforms on central bank policy. First, in addition to the traditional mandate of price stability, there are strong supports for additional mandate of the central bank to promote financial system stability. Second, macroprudential policy is needed to address procyclicality and build-up systemic risks in the macro-financial linkages of financial system that in most cases precede and deepen financial crisis. Third, monetary and financial stability are also prone to volatility of capital flows, especially for the emerging countries, and thus there is a need to manage them. The challenge is how to mix the policies of monetary, macroprudential, and capital flows management to meet the renewed mandate of central bank on monetary and financial stability. This paper reviews theoretical underpinnings and provides key concepts to address the issues. We show that central bank policy mix is both conceptually coherent and practically implementable. We provide a concrete recommendation with a reference from Indonesia’s experience since 2010. We also raise a number of challenges from practical point of views, especially relating to decision making process, forecasting model, and communication, for the success of the policy mix.