An
inflation target is a goal or aim set by a central bank or government to maintain a stable and controlled increase in prices over time. It means that they try to keep the rate at which prices of goods and services rise within a certain range, usually expressed as a percentage. The target is important as it helps control the economy and ensures that inflation does not get too high or too low, which can have negative effects on people's purchasing power and the overall stability of the economy.
Full definition
The past two decades have seen the increasingly widespread adoption
of inflation targeting as the framework for monetary policy.
That's certainly plausible, but the last figure shows that they've been missing their 2
percent inflation target for years now.
This could best be accomplished, it was thought, by firmly establishing the political independence of central banks and by setting
inflation targets in order to control expectations.
It's 16 times more likely that you'll be at the zero lower bound with a zero per
cent inflation target, versus a two per cent target.
First, the most direct attack on low r - star would be for central banks to pursue a somewhat
higher inflation target.
Q: You decided to renew the five -
year inflation target more or less as is and not tighten it as some analysts had been hoping.
The irony is that when we first started talking
about inflation targeting, it was our insistence on that very flexibility that made people think we weren't serious.
However, the pace of easing should take into account the presence of external risks and the need to build credibility under the newly introduced
inflation targeting regime.
However, the 2 %
inflation target remained out of reach and doubts about the sustainability and ultimate success of the program remained.
A
lower inflation target means lower nominal interest rates, and when the crisis hit, central banks had little room to cut rates before effectively hitting zero.
If we can achieve something like that outcome, that would still be consistent in every essential respect with the experience
under inflation targeting since it began 15 years or so ago.
The theory is
called inflation targeting, and it has dominated the thinking of central banks in developed countries for two decades.
Should
inflation targeting lose its appeal more broadly, this would not be surprising — the list of retired monetary theories is long.
A large number of industrial and a growing number of developing countries now have
domestic inflation targets administered by independent and transparent central banks.
Many central banks have now adopted
numerical inflation targets and others have clearly become more focused on inflation control even without adopting explicit targets.
So it has to manage inflation expectations verbally, while also backing away from its
preferred inflation targets and accepting higher ones instead.
All of the argument about
appropriate inflation targeting in recent years has focused not on whether 2 percent is too high but on whether it is too low a target.
Together, this could mean a greater risk in the future of hitting the effective lower bound for interest rates for any
given inflation target.
There is the further point that the logic that led to the adoption of the 2
percent inflation target years ago suggests that it is too low now.
Inflation targets in the region are not expected to be reached and monetary stimulation could continue for longer than expected.
All of this is in the context of a framework for monetary policy — a medium -
term inflation target — which is I think well understood.
The next mandate will essentially be the same as the existing two per
cent inflation target, with perhaps some additional language about the importance of financial market stability.
In part this reflects the starting point of many central banks that
adopted inflation targeting: they generally had a poor inflation history and low credibility with the public and financial markets.
Due to the fact that the Federal Reserve (a.k.a. «the Fed») has
hit inflation targets as well as employment targets, and due to the reality that the Fed needs to get the overnight lending rate higher to have some ammunition to fight a future recession, the short end of the yield curve is going to keep climbing.
First, as B&R show, the Fed has been missing their 2 percent
inflation target for about four years running.
Opponents claimed that it would lead to a poorly co-ordinated economic policy and could potentially lead to conflict in fiscal and monetary policy aims, resulting in particular from an over-emphasis in setting rates to
meet inflation targets at the expense of other factors such as the exchange rate.
As Chart 2 shows, policy rates in Canada have on average been only 0.25 % higher than the US (using quarterly observations) since the introduction of
inflation targeting from the Bank of Canada in 1992.
Take away: Though economic conditions have been improving for the world's third - largest economy, constantly
missed inflation targets pose challenges for the BOJ.
In this respect, Mervyn King (1997) has characterised
inflation targeting as «trust building by talk» (see also Kuttner and Posen 1999).
If they remain at current levels, the BoC will have to think seriously about lowering its overnight rate, not raising it, to achieve a two - per - cent
inflation target over the medium term.
Phrases with «inflation target»