IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedhep/y2008iqiip33-45nv.32no.2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are inflation targets good inflation forecasts?

Author

Listed:
  • Marie Diron
  • Benoit Mojon

Abstract

The authors show that quantified inflation objectives, which have been adopted by many industrialized countries, can be used as rule-of-thumb forecasting devices. Remarkably, they yield smaller forecast errors than widely used forecasting models and the forecasts of professional experts.

Suggested Citation

  • Marie Diron & Benoit Mojon, 2008. "Are inflation targets good inflation forecasts?," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 32(Q II), pages 33-45.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedhep:y:2008:i:qii:p:33-45:n:v.32no.2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/economic_perspectives/2008/ep_2qtr2008_part3_diron_mojon.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fabiani, S. & Druant, M. & Hernando, I. & Kwapil, C. & Landau, B. & Loupias, C. & Martins, F. & Mathä, T. & Sabbatini, R. & Stahl, H. & Stockman, A., 2005. "The Pricing Behaviour of Firms in the Euro Area: New Survey Evidence," Working papers 135, Banque de France.
    2. Emmanuel Dhyne & Luis J. Álvarez & Hervé Le Bihan & Giovanni Veronese & Daniel Dias & Johannes Hoffmann & Nicole Jonker & Patrick Lünnemann & Fabio Rumler & Jouko Vilmunen, 2005. "Price setting in the euro area: Some stylized facts from Individual Consumer Price Data," Working Paper Research 74, National Bank of Belgium.
    3. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    4. Scott Brave & Jonas D. M. Fisher, 2004. "In search of a robust inflation forecast," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 28(Q IV), pages 12-31.
    5. Kapetanios, George & Labhard, Vincent & Price, Simon, 2008. "Forecast combination and the Bank of England's suite of statistical forecasting models," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 772-792, July.
    6. Jeremy Rudd & Karl Whelan, 2006. "Can Rational Expectations Sticky-Price Models Explain Inflation Dynamics?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 303-320, March.
    7. James H. Stock & Mark W.Watson, 2003. "Forecasting Output and Inflation: The Role of Asset Prices," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(3), pages 788-829, September.
    8. Silvia Fabiani & Martine Druant & Ignacio Hernando & Claudia Kwapil & Bettina Landau & Claire Loupias & Fernando Martins & Thomas Mathä & Roberto Sabbatini & Harald Stahl & Ad Stokman, 2006. "What Firms' Surveys Tell Us about Price-Setting Behavior in the Euro Area," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(3), September.
    9. Castelnuovo, Efrem & Rodriguez-Palenzuela, Diego & Nicoletti Altimari, Sergio, 2003. "Definition of price stability, range and point inflation targets: the anchoring of long-term inflation expectations," Working Paper Series 273, European Central Bank.
    10. Unknown, 2005. "Forward," 2005 Conference: Slovenia in the EU - Challenges for Agriculture, Food Science and Rural Affairs, November 10-11, 2005, Moravske Toplice, Slovenia 183804, Slovenian Association of Agricultural Economists (DAES).
    11. Jeff Fuhrer & Arturo Estrella, 1999. "Are 'Deep' Parameters Stable? The Lucas Critique as an Empirical Hypothesis," Computing in Economics and Finance 1999 621, Society for Computational Economics.
    12. Jonas D. M. Fisher & Chin Te Liu & Ruilin Zhou, 2002. "When can we forecast inflation?," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 26(Q I), pages 32-44.
    13. Mr. Scott Roger & Mr. Mark R. Stone, 2005. "On Target? the International Experience with Achieving Inflation Targets," IMF Working Papers 2005/163, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Salisu, Afees A. & Ademuyiwa, Idris & Isah, Kazeem O., 2018. "Revisiting the forecasting accuracy of Phillips curve: The role of oil price," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 334-356.
    2. George A. Kahn, 2009. "Beyond inflation targeting: should central banks target the price level?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 94(Q III), pages 35-64.
    3. Marek Jarociński & Michele Lenza, 2018. "An Inflation‐Predicting Measure of the Output Gap in the Euro Area," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(6), pages 1189-1224, September.
    4. In Choi & Seong Jin Hwang, 2012. "Forecasting Korean inflation," Working Papers 1202, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy).
    5. Simon Richards & Matthieu Verstraete, 2016. "Understanding Firms' Inflation Expectations Using the Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey," Staff Working Papers 16-7, Bank of Canada.
    6. Faisal Rachman, 2016. "Is Inflation Target Announced by Bank Indonesia the Most Accurate Inflation Forecast?," Economics and Finance in Indonesia, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Indonesia, vol. 62, pages 98-120, August.
    7. Paul Hubert, 2015. "Do Central Bank Forecasts Influence Private Agents? Forecasting Performance versus Signals," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(4), pages 771-789, June.
    8. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2008. "Phillips curve inflation forecasts," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    9. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    10. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Simon Richards & Matthieu Verstraete, 2016. "Understanding Firms' Inflation Expectations Using the Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey," CESifo Working Paper Series 6090, CESifo.
    12. Manganelli, Simone, 2018. "Selecting models with judgment," Working Paper Series 2188, European Central Bank.
    13. Paul Hubert, 2011. "Do central banks forecast influence private agents ? Forecasting performance vs. signals," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2011-20, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Diron, Marie & Mojon, Benoît, 2005. "Forecasting the central bank's inflation objective is a good rule of thumb," Working Paper Series 564, European Central Bank.
    2. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2011. "Strategic Interaction among Heterogeneous Price-Setters in an Estimated DSGE Model," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 920-940, August.
    3. Etienne Gagnon & David López-Salido & Nicolas Vincent, 2013. "Individual Price Adjustment along the Extensive Margin," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(1), pages 235-281.
    4. Fernando E. Alvarez & Francesco Lippi & Luigi Paciello, 2011. "Optimal Price Setting With Observation and Menu Costs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1909-1960.
    5. Marcelle Chauvet & Insu Kim, 2010. "Microfoundations of inflation persistence in the New Keynesian Phillips curve," FRB Atlanta CQER Working Paper 2010-05, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    6. Giovanni Di Bartolomeo & Marco Di Pietro, 2017. "Intrinsic Persistence of Wage Inflation in New Keynesian Models of the Business Cycles," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(6), pages 1161-1195, September.
    7. Thorvardur Tjörvi Ólafsson, 2006. "The New Keynesian Phillips Curve: In Search of Improvements and Adaptation to the Open Economy," Economics wp31_tjorvi, Department of Economics, Central bank of Iceland.
    8. Bartosz Mackowiak & Frank Smets, 2008. "On implications of micro price data for macro models," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    9. Matějka, Filip, 2015. "Rigid pricing and rationally inattentive consumer," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PB), pages 656-678.
    10. Jan Babecký & Fabrizio Coricelli & Roman Horváth, 2009. "Assessing Inflation Persistence: Micro Evidence on an Inflation Targeting Economy," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 59(2), pages 102-127, June.
    11. van der Cruijsen, Carin A.B. & Eijffinger, Sylvester C.W. & Hoogduin, Lex H., 2010. "Optimal central bank transparency," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(8), pages 1482-1507, December.
    12. Migliardo, Carlo, 2012. "Heterogeneity in price setting behavior, spatial disparities and sectoral diversity: Evidence from a panel of Italian firms," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 1106-1118.
    13. Klenow, Peter J. & Malin, Benjamin A., 2010. "Microeconomic Evidence on Price-Setting," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 6, pages 231-284, Elsevier.
    14. Ian Babetskii & Fabrizio Coricelli & Roman Horváth, 2007. "Measuring and Explaining Inflation Persistence: Disaggregate Evidence on the Czech Republic," Working Papers IES 2007/22, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Aug 2007.
    15. Crucini, Mario J. & Shintani, Mototsugu & Tsuruga, Takayuki, 2010. "Accounting for persistence and volatility of good-level real exchange rates: The role of sticky information," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 48-60, May.
    16. Dhyne, Emmanuel & Fuss, Catherine & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Sevestre, Patrick, 2011. "Lumpy Price Adjustments: A Microeconometric Analysis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(4), pages 529-540.
    17. Kim, Insu, 2009. "Dual Wage Rigidities: Theory and Some Evidence," MPRA Paper 21494, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2010.
    18. Daniel Levy & Dongwon Lee & Haipeng (Allan) Chen & Robert J. Kauffman & Mark Bergen, 2011. "Price Points and Price Rigidity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1417-1431, November.
    19. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2008. "Five Facts about Prices: A Reevaluation of Menu Cost Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(4), pages 1415-1464.
    20. van der Cruijsen, Carin A.B. & Eijffinger, Sylvester C.W. & Hoogduin, Lex H., 2010. "Optimal central bank transparency," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(8), pages 1482-1507, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inflation (Finance);

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedhep:y:2008:i:qii:p:33-45:n:v.32no.2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lauren Wiese (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbchus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.