Using Macroeconomic Models for Monetary Policy in Ukraine

Abstract

An important precondition for successful implementation of inflation targeting is the ability of the central bank to forecast inflation given the fact that the inflation forecast has become an intermediate target. Certainly, this means there should be clear understanding of the monetary policy transmission mechanism functioning within the bank, because it is precisely through transmission channels that a central bank has to ensure convergence of its inflation forecast to the target. And it is almost impossible to pursue inflation targeting without a set of macroeconomic models that describes the monetary policy transmission mechanism and helps to analyse the current state of the economy as well as forecast (simulate) short- and medium-term macroeconomic scenarios. This article provides a review of the current state of macroeconomic modelling at central banks and describes the history of development and actual stance of the National Bank of Ukraine’s system of macroeconomic models. The existing system provides quite reliable support for the current monetary policy decision-making process, but it has to be improved by implementing a more sophisticated model (such as a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model) and enhancing the set of econometric models for shortterm forecast purposes in the future.