Is inflation targeting an appropriate framework for monetary policy? Experience from the inflation-targeting countries countries are optimistic about inflation targeting as a monetary-policy framework. South Africa is also following this trend. The international literature review of the topic offers lessons to be learnt from the common experience of the countries considered. It shows that inflation targeting is not a universal remedy to modern economic ills -- there is an emerging danger of assigning monetary policy a larger role than that which it can perform; a danger of expecting monetary policy to accomplish tasks that it cannot achieve; and a danger of preventing monetary policy from making the contribution that it is capable of doing. Therefore, inflation targeting cannot address all the macroeconomic problems that face many countries, except for inflation. Nonetheless, it plays a crucial role in improving macroeconomic performance. / Economics / M.A. (Economics)

Is inflation targeting an appropriate framework for monetary policy? Experience from the inflation-targeting countries countries are optimistic about inflation targeting as a monetary-policy framework. South Africa is also following this trend. The international literature review of the topic offers lessons to be learnt from the common experience of the countries considered. It shows that inflation targeting is not a universal remedy to modern economic ills -- there is an emerging danger of assigning monetary policy a larger role than that which it can perform; a danger of expecting monetary policy to accomplish tasks that it cannot achieve; and a danger of preventing monetary policy from making the contribution that it is capable of doing. Therefore, inflation targeting cannot address all the macroeconomic problems that face many countries, except for inflation. Nonetheless, it plays a crucial role in improving macroeconomic performance. / Economics / M.A. (Economics)

This thesis compares monetary policies, institutional status and different approaches to the selection of monetary policy and setting goals of central banks in the case of Czech National Bank, the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve System. The first chapter deals with the characteristics of the central bank, legislative regulation of the Czech National Bank is analysed there and it mentions the Czech peculiarities in the adjustment of the central bank. In addition, this chapter deals with the possibilities for the name of the central bank and there are examples of different solutions from the world. The second chapter focuses on the analysis of the central bank's position in the state. It emphasise independence as it is the core value for the central bank. This chapter also describes the regulatory and supervisory powers of the central bank and briefly discuss the composition of assets and financing of the central bank and its basic financial statements. The third chapter deals with the theory of monetary policy. Particular attention is paid to the monetary policy of inflation targeting. Furthermore, this chapter provides an overview of transmission mechanisms and describes various monetary policy instruments which central banks have. At the end of this part of the thesis there is a...

Le ciblage de l’inflation est le cadre le plus récent de la politique monétaire dans le monde. Il est désormais largement choisi par les pays avancés ainsi que par les pays émergents. Cependant, deux questions principales sont encore en débat particulièrement dans les pays émergent et en développement. Ils s’agissent des avantages du ciblage d’inflation et du respect de conditions préalables afin d’assurer le succès de ce régime. Empiriquement, on conclut que le ciblage d’inflation est un cadre de politique monétaire réussie pour les pays émergents. En plus, il n'est pas nécessaire pour ces pays de satisfaire toutes les conditions préalables strictes avant de réussir à l'adopter. La situation budgétaire et l'indépendance de la banque centrale jouent un rôle plus important que les autres conditions et doivent être préparées en premier lieu. Concernant le Vietnam, par l'approche structurelle vecteur autorégressif (VAR), la thèse montre que la politique monétaire de la banque centrale n’est pas efficace. Donc, il permet de confirmer la nécessité du changement de stratégie monétaire par rapport au cadre actuel. Cependant, notamment parce que la banque centrale n’est pas indépendante, le Vietnam ne peut pas adopter le ciblage d’inflation dans un bref délai. Les recommandations du durcissement de la contrainte budgétaire et de l’augmentation l’indépendance de la banque centrale sont suggérées avant la mise en œuvre de sa stratégie de ciblage d’inflation. / Inflation targeting (hereafter IT) is the newest monetary policy framework in the world. The practice of IT has been chosen by both advanced countries and emerging countries. However, two main issues are still under debate particularly in emerging and developing countries. They are the benefits of IT and preconditions to success adoption. Empirically, we showed that IT is considered as a successful monetary policy framework for emerging countries. In addition, it is not necessary for emerging markets to satisfy all stringent preconditions to successfully adopt IT. In practice, the fiscal situation and the central bank independence play a more important role than other conditions and need to be prepared first.Basing on Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR), the thesis concludes that Vietnamese monetary policy currently does not effectively control the inflation rate. Inflation targeting framework would be a solution to this. Nonetheless, this thesis concludes that at this moment in time Vietnam is not able to adopt the IT framework, as it still must prepare some of the preconditions required before official adoption. The recommendations of hardening the budget constraint and increase central bank independence in relationship with government are suggested before implementing IT strategy.

This diploma thesis is focused on the description of Inflation Targeting regime in the Czech Republic. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part deals with inflation and its targeting and with the economical circumstances that led to the launch of this monetary policy regime in the Czech Republic. The next part concerns the central bank reaction function, transmission channels, evaluation of the inflation target sets and the description of prognostic models that the central bank uses for forecasting. Then main stress is laid on the new structural dynamic model "g3". The last part describes my own inflation prognosis, which is based on the time series analysis.

The thesis "Inflation targeting in circumstances of low interest rates" describes the monetary policy of the Czech National Bank with main aim on its current problems. The target of the thesis is to analytically prove the disruption of a section of the transmission mechanism when the repo rate should determine the interest rates on the czech interbank market. This disruption should have been caused by the recent financial crisis.

The main goal of this thesis has been a study of alternative policy rules in a small structural model calibrated to capture the Czech economy. After the overview of the historic development of economic theory and structural modeling we have specified a small open economy model that has served as a main technical tool for the analysis. The model represents a framework, where forward-looking model-consistent expectations are formed with respect to the development of the exchange rate and interest rates. Inflation expectations are forward looking too with some nominal rigidities in inflation dynamics. The model's structure is relatively simple. The IS curve captures the dynamics of real GDP, that exhibits real rigidity, motivated by habit formation or investment adjustment costs. In our specification the real GDP is a function of (the deviation of) real XR, real IR and foreign demand (from corresponding equilibrium levels). The Phillips-curve is based on the F-M type wage setting behavior, therefore it enables to consider domestic prices, that are modeled as mark-ups over wages. CPI inflation then consists of domestic, imported and administered inflation, including the effect of any indirect taxes changes. The exchange rate is modeled by the UIP arbitrage condition. Exchange rate expectations are forward-looking, but with some inertia in expectation formation. Interest rates with one year maturity are also modeled as an arbitrage condition on the money market, they are fully model-consistently forward looking. The model is closed by a Taylor-type forward-looking policy rule. The interest rate exhibits some inertia and feeds back from deviation of inflation from target and output from its equilibrium. The specification (parameterization) of the rule is general enough to examine CPI and domestic inflation targeting. The model specification has been followed by empirical work leading towards the implementation of the previously specified model on Czech data. Based on the sources of the Czech Statistical Office, Czech National Bank, Consensus Economics Inc., we first processed the data by executing seasonal adjustment and other transformations necessary for being consistent with the definition of model variables. The database has been created by an automatic MATLAB based routine, therefore the calculations were relatively easy to update. The database being completed, we have set up a Kalman-filter for determining equilibrium values for the real interest rate, exchange rate and output. At the same time through Kalman filtering we identified all model residuals. We paid special attention to the decomposition of the output gap and discussing In order to assess the overall dynamic properties of the model and judge how well the model fits the data, we conducted several exercises. First we decomposed some of the important endogenous variables of the model to shocks to see, whether the identified shocks are in line with our intuition and episodes of the recent Czech economic history. We found, that the shocks are not in contrast with some of the clearly distinguishable episodes. After the shock decomposition we run in-sample simulations to see, how well the model is able to fit the reality two years ahead. We found the overall results quite encouraging. We were able to fit quite well the output gap as well as MP inflation. Domestic inflation has been slightly more inertial in model simulations than in reality, but even in this case the results were acceptable. The model was not able to fit the 2001-2 appreciation of the nominal XR footnote{Understandably it neither forecasted well the fast fall in inflation after the appreciation period.}, which is not a big surprise. The model calibration part of the thesis concludes, that the model fits the data and economic story reasonably well.

O regime de metas de inflação é uma estratégia de política monetária utilizada por inúmeros países desenvolvidos e em desenvolvimento que tem por objetivo ancorar as expectativas dos agentes econômicos quanto ao comportamento futuro da taxa de inflação. De acordo com a literatura sobre o tema, o regime de metas inflacionárias além de provocar efeitos positivos sobre a taxa de inflação das economias que o adotam, tende também a provocar melhoras sobre o comportamento do produto. O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar empiricamente os impactos da adoção do sistema de metas de inflação para a taxa de inflação e crescimento real do produto dos países, diferenciando os impactos entre os países desenvolvidos e os em desenvolvimento. Utilizando o grupo de países que adotam metas de inflação como o grupo de tratamento e os países que não adotam como grupo de controle, dois procedimentos metodológicos foram realizados: estimação por diferenças em diferenças e análise em painel. Os resultados da estimação por diferenças em diferenças não se mostraram robustos e assim a análise em painel foi realizada. Os resultados demonstram que a adoção do sistema de metas inflacionárias produz impactos significativos para a inflação e crescimento do produto dos países que o adotam. Para o caso dos países desenvolvidos a adoção do sistema de metas tende a elevar a taxa média de inflação assim como o crescimento do produto. Para os países em desenvolvimento, aqueles que adotam o regime tendem a apresentar médias de inflação e do crescimento do produto significativamente menores que os países que não adotam. Concluí-se que para os países em desenvolvimento existe um custo de manutenção do sistema de metas de inflação em termos de queda do crescimento do produto. Esse custo estaria relacionado à maior dificuldade enfrentada por tais países na construção de credibilidade, fazendo com que os mesmos sigam políticas monetárias restritivas e definam um desenho rígido para o regime de metas de inflação. / Inflation targeting is a monetary policy strategy used by several developed and developing countries which aims to link together the economic actors? expectation related to the future behaviour of the inflation rate. According to specialized literature, inflation targeting tends to bring an improvement over product behaviour, besides bringing positive effects over inflation rates of those countries that make use of it. The focal point of this dissertation is to empirically analyse the impacts caused by the adoption of inflation targeting system on countries? inflation rate and real GDP growth, distinguishing effects on developed countries from those on developing ones. Defining the group made of countries that do use inflation targeting as treatment group and the group made of countries that do no use it as control group, two methodological procedures were accomplished: differences-in-differences estimation and panel data analysis. As the results of differences-in-differences estimator did not seem robust, panel analysis was also consummated. These results showed that inflation targeting adoption causes significative impacts on inflation rate and GDP growth in countries that adopt it. In developed countries, the adoption of such monetary policy strategy tends to increase the mean inflation rate, which also occurs with the GDP growth. In the other hand, developing countries that adopted inflation targeting tend to present mean inflation rate and GDP growth substantially lower than developing countries that do not make use of it. Though, it is possible to conclude that exists a maintenance cost of inflation targeting system for developing countries regarding the loss in GDP growth. This cost could be related to the greater difficulty that these countries face when forming credibility, which forces them to follow restrictive monetary policies and also to define an strict outline for inflation targeting.

O sistema de metas de inflação é considerado por muitos o regime monetário mais moderno em prática no mundo, um dos pilares fundamentais da política macroeconômica atual. Muitos estudos foram feitos sobre esse sistema, mas até o momento faltavam pesquisas empíricas sobre uma questão chave: quais são os determinantes do sucesso do sistema de metas de inflação? Mais especificamente, será que um país com dívida menor, superávit fiscal maior e mais aberto ao comércio exterior tem mais chances de ser bem sucedido sob o regime de metas? Este trabalho procura responder empiricamente a essa questão analisando quais variáveis macroeconômicas fazem com que esse regime funcione melhor em determinado país, ou seja, o que afeta a chance de que a inflação se mantenha próxima à meta. A análise econométrica é feita a partir de um painel de dados de diversas variáveis. Entre outras, o painel contém a situação fiscal do governo, o nível de abertura comercial e o estoque de reservas internacionais, para os diversos países que utilizam ou utilizaram esse regime, durante o período de adoção. Os cálculos mostram que nenhuma dessas variáveis apresentou significância estatística na determinação do sucesso do regime. / Inflation targeting is considered by many as the most modern monetary regime in practice in the world, one of the fundamentals of todays macroeconomic policy. Many empirical works have been done on this theme, but, until now, am important question remained unanswered: what are the determinants of the inflation targeting regime success? More precisely, will a country with lower debt, higher fiscal surplus, and a more open economy have better chances in being successful under IT? This paper tries to empirically answer this analyzing which macroeconomic variables help the regime functioning in a given country, that is, what affects the chances that inflation keeps on track. The econometric analysis is made with a panel data approach. Among others, the panel contains the government fiscal situation, the level of commercial openness, and the international reserves stock, for the various countries that are, or were for some time, under inflation targeting, during the period of adoption. The calculations show that these variables are not statistically significant in the determination of the regime success.

A presente tese embasa-se na concepção de que a obtenção e a manutenção da estabilidade de preços na economia brasileira dependem não apenas da adoção de medidas pontuais de curto prazo, como também da contemplação da inflação, ao lado do crescimento econômico, como objetivos correlacionados no contexto de um projeto de desenvolvimento atinente a um horizonte ampliado de tempo. Em termos de políticas conjunturais de controles de preços, evidencia-se que, dado a inflação brasileira não consubstanciar-se em um fenômeno precipuamente de demanda, outras medidas, que não a mera elevação da taxa básica de juros, revelam-se necessárias; ademais, clarifica-se que aumentos nos juros, por seus significativos impactos contracionistas sobre a atividade econômica, comprometem a própria estabilidade futura de preços, consistindo, portanto, em uma conduta anti-inflacionária deveras ineficiente. No que tange ao longo prazo, argumenta-se que a inflação brasileira apresenta especificidades que a tornam variável dependente do processo de desenvolvimento econômico, social e institucional do País. Em assim sendo, entende-se que a dinâmica inflacionária brasileira vincula-se significativamente ao comportamento de determinados atributos intrínsecos ao setor produtivo nacional. Evidências empíricas obtidas neste trabalho a partir da estimação de um modelo SVAR concernente ao período que se segue a dezembro de 2009 mostram a existência de uma relação negativa entre inflação e produtividade na indústria de transformação, revelando-se tal relação, entretanto, inelástica, o que esclarece que o empresariado brasileiro tende a converter a maior parte dos ganhos de produtividade em expansões de mark-up, em vez de repassá-los primordialmente aos preços. Assim, constata-se que os problemas inflacionários enfrentados pela economia brasileira se mostram deveras complexos, e que sua resolução não depende apenas de vontade política. Desse modo, salta aos olhos a ineficiência do simplismo inerente ao Regime de Metas de Inflação no que tange à persecução da estabilidade de preços no Brasil. / The present thesis is based on the idea that obtaining and maintaining price stability in the Brazilian economy depends not only on the adoption of short-term measures, but also on the contemplation of inflation, alongside economic growth, as correlated objectives in the context of a development project related to an extended horizon of time. In terms of the cyclical policies of price control, it is evident that, given that Brazilian inflation is not mainly consubstantiated in a demand phenomenon, alternative measures, other than the mere increase of the benchmark interest rate, are necessary; in addition, it is clarified that increases in interest rates, due to their significant contractionary impacts on economic activity, jeopardize the future price stability, thus constituting an inefficient anti-inflationary behavior. With regard to the long-term, it is argued that Brazilian inflation shows specificities that make it a variable dependent of the economic, social and institutional development process of the Country. Accordingly, it is understood that the Brazilian inflationary dynamics is significantly linked to behavior of certain attributes intrinsic to the national productive sector. Empirical evidence obtained in this work from the estimation of a SVAR model concerning to the period after December 2009 shows the existence of a negative relationship between inflation and productivity in the manufacturing industry, revealing this relationship, however, inelastic, what clarifies that Brazilian businessmen tend to convert most of their productivity gains into mark-up expansions, instead of passing them along primarily to prices. So, it can be seen that the inflationary problems faced by the Brazilian economy are very complex, and that their resolution depends not only on political will. Therefore, the inefficiency of the simplicity inherent to the Inflation Targeting Regime in relation to the pursuit of price stability in Brazil is quite clear.