Ciblage d’inflation : quelle règle pour la Banque centrale des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (BCEAO) ?

The objective of this article is to determine an inflation-targeting rule for the BCEAO, which the opportunity could be well seized following the new institutional reform of WAMU and the BCEAO. Thus, the best optimal monetary policy rule that would stabilize the macroeconomic system and guide the BCEAO authorities for an inflation targeting strategy was determined. For this purpose, stochastic simulations are performed for the determination of the optimal coefficients during the period 1980-2016. Considering the WAMU zone as a whole, the results show coherent and communicable optimal rules because the interest rate increases when inflation is above the target and when demand exceeds potential output. This ensures compliance with the Taylor principle. Subsequently, the comparison between these rules shows that a forward-looking rule containing a gradualism of monetary policy seems to be better. In addition to being very aggressive, it gives a good result in terms of stabilization of both inflation and economic activity and better result in terms of nominal interest rate and thus reconciles nominal anchoring and cyclical regulation in the WAMU zone. Codes JEL : E43, E47, E52, E58.