Central Bank Preferences Research Articles

Inflation variability between central bank's preferences and the structure of the economy: A note

The current paper seeks to build a theoretical explanation to understand why many central banks failed to reduce inflation variability despite having the desire. The result proves that central bank's preferences are a necessary condition but not sufficient to guarantee lower inflation variability. The structure of the economy and the types of the shocks are significant factors.

ROBUST MONETARY POLICY UNDER UNCERTAINTY ABOUT CENTRAL BANK PREFERENCES

In this paper, we study the impact of central bank opacity on macroeconomic performances in a new Keynesian framework with model uncertainty using robust control techniques. We identify a new source of central bank opacity, which refers to the lack of information about the central bank's preference for robustness in the sense of Hansen and Sargent. We find closed-form solutions for the robust control problem, analysing the impact of the lack of transparency about the central bank's preferences for robustness. We show that an increased transparency about the central bank's preference for robustness makes monetary policy respond less aggressively to cost-push shocks, thus reducing the inflation and output gap variability. As a consequence, inflation and output gap are less volatile than under central bank opacity about its preference for robustness.

Trend growth and optimal monetary policy

This paper analyzes the optimal behavior of the Central Bank in an economy characterized by balanced growth. We show how trend-growth affects the dynamics of inflation, the preferences of a welfare-maximizing Central Bank and optimal monetary policy. In particular, we show that the optimal monetary policy response to cost-push shocks is not invariant to trend growth, and that countries with lower trend growth have substantially higher incentives to commit to simple rules, both from a welfare and price-stability perspectives.

Do asymmetric central bank preferences help explain observed inflation outcomes?

When the central banker’s loss function is asymmetric, changes in the volatility of inflation and/or unemployment affect equilibrium inflation. This suggests that changing macroeconomic volatilities may be an important driving force behind trends in observed inflation. Previous evidence, which has offered support for this idea, suffers from a spurious regression problem. Once this problem is controlled for, the evidence suggests that the volatility of unemployment does not help explain inflation outcomes. There is some evidence of a relationship between inflation and its volatility, but overall the data does not support the view that changing economic volatility, as filtered through asymmetric central bank preferences, is an important driver of inflation trends.

ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY ABOUT CENTRAL BANK PREFERENCES FOR MODEL ROBUSTNESS

Using a New Keynesian model subject to misspecifications, we examine the accountability issue in a framework of delegation where government and private agents are uncertain about the central bank's preference for model robustness. We show that, in the benchmark case of full transparency, the optimal inflation targeting weight (or penalty) is decreasing with the preference for robustness. Departing from the benchmark equilibrium, the central bank has then incentive to be less transparent in order to reduce the optimal inflation targeting weight and thus to become more independent vis-a-vis the government. We also find that greater opacity will increase the sensibility of inflation and model misspecification to the inflation shock but will decrease that of output-gap. Since macroeconomic volatility could be increased or decreased under more opacity, there could exist in some cases a trade-off between the level and the variability of inflation (and output gap). Persistent inflation shocks could be associated with a higher inflation targeting weight as well as a higher sensibility of inflation and output gap to the inflation shock but a lower sensibility of model misspecification.

Asymmetric central bank's preference and inflation rate in Jordan

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the hypothesis that a central bank's asymmetric preferences are able to explain inflation rate in a developing country. In addition, it seeks to help comprehend movements of inflation rate in Jordan and to understand Central Bank of Jordan preferences regarding inflation rate and output.Design/methodology/approachA standard monetary model consists of a central bank's loss function and an economy structure is constructed, which acts as a constraint on the central bank's behavior. Then, a distribute‐lag version of the derived model is estimated using ordinary least squares method.FindingsThe empirical evidence from the Jordanian economy shows that inflation rate relies on the variances of inflation rate and the variances of output. This finding supports the hypothesis that a central bank's asymmetric loss function is able to justify inflation rate movements. Moreover, the Jordanian central banker prefers higher inflation rate and higher level of output.Originality/valueThe paper provides evidence from a developing country regarding the ability of the asymmetric central bank preferences to justify inflation rate movement. In addition, the paper links central banks' losses with the uncertainty level and inflation rate in the economy.

Aggregate demand shocks, central bank preferences and macroeconomic outcomes with imperfect information

Assuming imperfect information regarding aggregate demand shocks, the paper shows: first, the distribution of the impact of such shocks between employment and prices depends crucially on central bank preferences; second, optimal stabilization is achieved by a conservative central banker.

Is Transparency About Central Bank Plans Desirable?

A central bank with private information about its preferences has an incentive to reduce its planned inflation to increase the public's perception of its inflation aversion and lower expected future inflation. A regime is said to be transparent if planned inflation is observable and reveals the central bank's preferences and to be non-transparent if planned inflation is unobservable and can be only imperfectly inferred from actual inflation. A central bank in the non-transparent regime is said to become more transparent when actual inflation becomes a better signal of planned inflation. I find several results about transparent and non-transparent regimes: some are novel and some contrast with the results of earlier papers. In particular, I demonstrate that in a non-transparent regime, increased transparency need not improve the public's ability to infer a central bank's private information. I show that society and central banks are better off with more transparency. My numerical results suggest that society and central banks prefer the transparent to the non-transparent regimes.

Monopolistic unions, Brainard uncertainty, and optimal monetary policy

Some authors have argued that multiplicative uncertainty may benefit society as the cautionary motive reduces the inflation bias. However, when there are non-atomistic wage setters, higher multiplicative uncertainty may raise the wage premium and unemployment and thus reduce welfare. Furthermore, since central bank preferences also affect the wage premium, delegating policy to an independent central banker with an optimal degree of conservatism cannot deliver a second-best outcome.

Central Bank preferences and monetary rules under the inflation targeting regime in Brasil

The estimated interest rate rules are reduced form equations and for that reason they do not directly reveal anything about the structural parameters of monetary policy. In this paper, we seek to further elucidate the Brazilian monetary policy under the inflation targeting regime by calibrating Central Bank preferences. More specifically, we calibrate the policymaker’s loss function by choosing the preference parameter values which minimize the deviation between the optimal and actual paths of the basic interest rate (Selic). Our results indicate that the Central Bank has adopted a flexible inflation target regime and placed some greater weight upon inflation stabilization. We also find out that the monetary authority’s concern with interest rate smoothing has been far deeper than with output stabilization

Revisiting the role of multiplicative uncertainty in a model without inflationary bias

Kobayashi [Kobayashi, T., 2003. Multiplicative uncertainty in a model without inflationary bias. Economics Letters 80, 317–321.] claims that an increase in multiplicative uncertainty on the transmission mechanism of monetary policy improves social welfare when central bank's preferences are highly uncertain. We show that this result applies only when society is strictly conservative.

Transparency of Central Bank Preferences

AbstractIn this paper, we examine whether the transparency of the central bank’s preferences is desirable. We make two major points. First, in the literature on preference transparency variance-reduction frameworks are often adopted. As a consequence a change in the degree of transparency affects the magnitude of information asymmetries, but at the same time it implies a rather arbitrary effect on the distribution of preferences. We present a clean framework without this problem. Second, using a very general specification of shocks to the central bank’s preferences, we show that society prefers transparency if it sufficiently values the employment target, whereas it prefers opacity if it estimates inflation as sufficiently important.

Learning and Expectational Stability under Robust Monetary Policy

In the last few years, several articles have been devoted to the study of model uncertainty in the New Keynesian model using robust control methods. Most studies have focused on how to design a robust monetary policy to take model uncertainty more seriously. Little attention has, however, been given to expectation formation under such a robust monetary policy. The purpose of this study is to explore the expectational stability under robust monetary policy when private expectations are formed by the adaptive learning technology. We find that the economy is determinate and stable under learning if (i) private agents' expectations are observable to the central bank and appropriately incorporated into its optimal policy rules, and (ii) the central bank's preference for robustness is sufficiently weak. It follows that it is important for the central bank to consider expectational stability when it implements a robust monetary policy.

The Asymmetric Loss Function and the Central Banks’ Ability in Developing Countries

This paper seeks to develop a theoretical strand of research in monetary economics by modelling central bank ability in the loss function. Recently, many working papers issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) prove that some central banks, particularly from developing countries, are suffering from serious operational problems that might affect their abilities to control the economy. Simultaneously, a literature review shows that the movements are toward using asymmetric loss function. Therefore, we utilize this function in the standard monetary approach. The results proved that both central bank ability and preference in developing countries are fundamental to explain inflation bias and the movement of monetary policy instrument.

Asymmetric information and rational expectations: When is it right to be “wrong”?

In this paper we examine the effects of private agents being less than fully rational in their expectations. We examine this in the context of monetary policy, where the Central Bank may have uncertain preferences either by choice or by necessity. The new feature is that we allow the public to react in two different ways. They either form rational expectations and internalize the uncertainty about the Central Bank's preferences in full; or alternatively, and if this process of internalization is costly, it forms a ‘best’ guess regarding those preferences. This implies a certainty equivalence strategy applied to the preference parameters. As those parameters enter the decisions non-linearly, a systematic error emerges. We examine the magnitude of the resulting error in inflation and output, following the assumption of certainty equivalence. Under all reasonable levels of uncertainty, this error turns out to be small but involves trading a deflation bias against the cost of gathering the information needed for the full information rational expectations' solution.

Stability of central bank preferences, macroeconomic shocks, and efficiency of the monetary policy: empirical evidence for Canada

Following the approach suggested by Favero and Rovelli (2002), I estimate a three-equations system for different sub-samples for Canada. The results indicate that the preferences of the monetary authority have changed between the different regimes. In particular, the parameter associated to the implicit target of inflation has been reduced significantly. The macroeconomic conditions from the side of the aggregate demand have been more favourable than those related to the aggregate supply. The SD of the monetary rule suggests that it has been conducted successfully in the last regime.

The exchange rate and optimal monetary policy rules in open and developing economies: Some simple analytics

Using a simple, tractable model, this paper revisits and expands upon issues relating to optimal monetary policy rules (MPRs) in open economies. The optimality of the rule is explored through various specifications of a central bank loss function as it is the loss function that offers insight into central bank preferences. Many of the issues on this topic have centred on the role of the exchange rate: Is it optimal for the policy instrument to react to the exchange rate? What is the role of the exchange rate in a domestic inflation targeting vs CPI inflation targeting? Does a fear of floating have any bearing on the way optimal MPRs are constructed? While this paper is not empirical, the analysis is relevant for central banks in open and developing economies that face a choice between allowing exchange rates to float (and adopting an inflation targeting regime) and engaging in some degree of exchange rate fixity.

Are Central Bank Preferences Asymmetric? A Comment

A recent paper by Ruge‐Murcia (2004) on asymmetric central bank objectives provides a new perspective on the policy roots of inflation in developed economies. More precisely, the paper demonstrates that if the distribution of the supply shocks is normal, then the reduced‐form solution for inflation implies a positive (or negative) relation between average inflation and the variance of shocks. We argue that the evidence offered in support of this hypothesis suffers from lack of identification because Phillips curve nonlinearity combined with quadratic central bank preferences yield the same reduced‐form solution for inflation. If so, estimating reduced form for inflation will not be able to discriminate between these models. Yet they have quite different implications for policy. Other, structural, evidence is needed.

Nonlinear Taylor Rules and Asymmetric Preferences in Central Banking: Evidence from the United Kingdom and the United States

This paper explores theoretically and empirically the view that Taylor rules are often nonlinear due to asymmetric central bank preferences, and that the nature of these asymmetries changes across different policy regimes. The theoretical model uses a standard new Keynesian framework to establish equivalence relations between the shape of nonlinearities in Taylor rules and asymmetries in monetary policy objectives. These relations are estimated and tested for the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) over various subperiods by means of smooth transition regressions.There is often evidence in favor of nonlinear rules in both countries, and their character changes substantially over subperiods. The period preceding inflation targeting in the UK is characterized by a concave rule supporting dominant recession avoidance preferences, while the inflation targeting period is characterized by a convex rule supporting dominant inflation avoidance preferences on the part of policymakers. Dominant inflation avoidance appears during the Vietnam War in the US while, during the Burns/Miller and the Greenspan periods, recession avoidance dominates. Under Volcker the Taylor rule is linear. This is consistent with an offset by inflation avoidance of the more prevalent recession avoidance of the Fed.Findings from both countries support the view that reaction functions and the asymmetry properties of the underlying loss functions change in line with the regime and the main macroeconomic problem of the day.

Monetary Policy Transparency and Inflation Persistence in a Small Open Economy

Using a New-Keynesian small open economy model, we examine the effects of central bank transparency on inflation persistence. We have found that more opacity could reinforce the effect of persistent shocks on the level and variability of endogenous variables if the difference between the interest elasticity of domestic goods demand and the degree of trade openness is sufficient large or sufficiently low, judging on structural parameters characterising the economy, the central bank preference and its initial degree of opacity. Our result implies that, under perfect capital mobility, a high degree of domestic financial development is a good reason for increasing the transparency.