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A comparison of product price targeting and other monetary anchor options for commodity exporters in Latin America

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  • Frankel, Jeffrey A.

Abstract

Seven possible nominal variables are considered as candidates to be the anchor or target for monetary policy. The context is countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), which tend to be price takers on world markets, to produce commodity exports subject to volatile terms of trade, and to experience procyclical international finance. Three anchor candidates are exchange rate pegs: to the dollar, euro and SDR. One candidate is orthodox Inflation Targeting. Three candidates represent proposals for a new sort of inflation targeting that differs from the usual focus on the CPI, in that prices of export commodities are given substantial weight and prices of imports are not: PEP (Peg the Export Price), PEPI (Peg an Export Price Index), and PPT (Product Price Targeting). The selling point of these production-based price indices is that each could serve as a nominal anchor while yet accommodating terms of trade shocks, in comparison to a CPI target. CPI-targeters such as Brazil, Chile, and Peru are observed to respond to increases in world prices of imported oil with monetary policy that is sufficiently tight to appreciate their currencies, an undesirable property, which is the opposite of accommodating the terms of trade. As hypothesized, a product price target generally does a better job of stabilizing the real domestic prices of tradable goods than does a CPI target. Bottom line: A Product Price Targeter would appreciate in response to an increase in world prices of its commodity exports, not in response to an increase in world prices of its imports. CPI targeting gets this backwards.
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  • Frankel, Jeffrey A., 2011. "A comparison of product price targeting and other monetary anchor options for commodity exporters in Latin America," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123148, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:123148
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    Cited by:

    1. Frankel, Jeffrey, 2017. "How to Cope with Volatile Commodity Export Prices: Four Proposals," Working Paper Series rwp17-033, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    2. Algozhina, Aliya, 2022. "Monetary policy rule, exchange rate regime, and fiscal policy cyclicality in a developing oil economy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    3. Ngomba Bodi, Francis Ghislain, 2022. "External constraint and procyclicality of monetary policy of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC)," MPRA Paper 116375, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Lukas Vogel & Stefan Hohberger & Bernhard Herz, 2015. "Should Commodity Exporters Peg to the Export Price?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 486-501, August.
    5. Pierre-Richard Agénor & Luiz A. Pereira da Silva, 2013. "Inflation Targeting and Financial Stability: A Perspective from the Developing World," Working Papers Series 324, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    6. Gan, Pei-Tha, 2014. "The precise form of financial integration: Empirical evidence for selected Asian countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 208-219.
    7. Drago Bergholt, 2014. "Monetary Policy in Oil Exporting Economies," Working Papers No 5/2014, Centre for Applied Macro- and Petroleum economics (CAMP), BI Norwegian Business School.
    8. Matsumura, Misaki, 2022. "What price index should central banks target? An open economy analysis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    9. Nikhil Patel & Agustín Villar, 2016. "Measuring inflation," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Inflation mechanisms, expectations and monetary policy, volume 89, pages 9-21, Bank for International Settlements.
    10. Iyer, Tara, 2020. "The welfare implications of exchange rate choices in developing agricultural economies," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
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    12. Jean-Pierre Allegret & Mohamed Tahar Benkhodja & Tovonony Razafindrabe, 2018. "Monetary Policy, Oil Stabilization Fund and the Dutch Disease," Working Papers hal-01796312, HAL.
    13. Frankel, Jeffrey A., 2012. "The Natural Resource Curse: A Survey of Diagnoses and Some Prescriptions," Scholarly Articles 8694932, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    14. Hossein Tavakolian & Hamed Ghiaie, 2019. "Optimal Inflation Targeting in a Dual-Exchange Rate Oil Economy," THEMA Working Papers 2019-09, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    15. Christian Rohe & Matthias Hartermann, 2015. "The role of external shocks for monetary policy in Colombia and Brazil: A Bayesian SVAR analysis," CQE Working Papers 4215, Center for Quantitative Economics (CQE), University of Muenster.
    16. Ghiaie, Hamed & Tabarraei, Hamid Reza & Tavakolian, Hossein, 2022. "Alternative monetary policy regimes in an oil-exporting economy," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 161-177.
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    JEL classification:

    • E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General
    • F40 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - General

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