How useful are monetary policy rules to deal with inflation: The Spanish case

The role of monetary policy rules to explain the behaviour of central banks has received an increasing attention during the last few years. The Spanish case could be of interest given that, with an inflation above the European average, was able to conduct its monetary policy and to control the inflation in order to join the European monetary union. But after the adoption of the European Central Bank’s monetary policy in January 1999, a higher inflation can be observed. In this paper we explore whether the monetary policy performed by the Bank of Spain would have follow a monetary policy rule, and to which extent monetary rules contribute to achieve the goal of inflation.