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Which inflation to target? A small open economy with sticky wages indexed to past inflation

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  • Alessia Campolmi

Abstract

In a closed economy context there is common agreement on price inflation stabilization being one of the objects of monetary policy. Moving to an open economy context gives rise to the coexistence of two measures of inflation: domestic inflation (DI) and consumer price inflation (CPI). Which one of the two measures should be the target variable? This is the question addressed in this paper. In particular, I use a small open economy model to show that once sticky wages indexed to past CPI inflation are introduced, a complete inward looking monetary policy is no more optimal. I first, derive a loss function from a second order approximation of the utility function and then, I compute the fully optimal monetary policy under commitment. Then, I use the optimal monetary policy as a benchmark to compare the performance of different monetary policy rules. The main result is that once a positive degree of indexation is introduced in the model the rule performing better (among the Taylor type rules considered) is the one targeting wage inflation and CPI inflation. Moreover this rule delivers results very close to the one obtained under the fully optimal monetary policy with commitment.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessia Campolmi, 2006. "Which inflation to target? A small open economy with sticky wages indexed to past inflation," Economics Working Papers 961, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:961
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    Cited by:

    1. Agnès Bénassy-Quéré & Véronique Salins, 2010. "A Case for Intermediate Exchange-Rate Regimes," Working Papers 2010-14, CEPII research center.
    2. 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.
    3. Romain Duval & Lukas Vogel, 2008. "Oil Price Shocks, Rigidities and the Conduct of Monetary Policy: Some Lessons from a New Keynesian Perspective," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 603, OECD Publishing.
    4. Yu-chin Chen & Pisut Kulthanavit, 2008. "Monetary Policy Design under Imperfect Knowledge: An Open Economy Analysis," Working Papers UWEC-2008-14, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    5. Rodrigo Caputo & Luis Oscar Herrera, 2013. "Efficient CPI-Based Taylor Rules in Small Open Economies," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 694, Central Bank of Chile.
    6. Romain Duval & Lukas Vogel, 2012. "How Do Nominal and Real Rigidities Interact? A Tale of the Second Best," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(7), pages 1455-1474, October.
    7. Chiara Forlati, 2007. "On the Benefits of a Monetary Union: Does it Pay to Be Bigger?," Working Papers 201303, Center for Fiscal Policy, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, revised Jul 2012.
    8. Salem M. Abo-Zaid, 2010. "Sticky Wages, Incomplete Pass-Through and Inflation Targeting: What is the Right Index to Target?," Journal of Economics and Econometrics, Economics and Econometrics Society, vol. 53(1), pages 28-58.
    9. Alessandro Flamini & Costas Milas, 2014. "Open-economy Distribution Forecast Targeting, Macroeconomic Volatility and Financial Implication," DEM Working Papers Series 080, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    10. 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.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inflation; open economy; sticky wages; indexation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

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