Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2003. / Some digitised pages may appear illegible due to the condition of the original hard copy / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Since 1989 an increasing number of countries have introduced inflation targeting as a monetary policy and many of them have achieved great success. This apparent success has led some to speculate that inflation targets might also be desirable for countries at somewhat lower stages of economic development, including South Africa. The idea of an inflation target for South Africa has, in fact drawn growing support as a practical response to the increasing difficulty of monetary targeting with a liberalised capital account and was implemented in the country on 23 February 2000. Inflation targeting makes the exchange rate less flexible in response to foreign shocks and thus lessens the automatic stabilisation provided by flexible exchange rates. There is some argument to suggest that South Africa may not be a good candidate for an inflation target relative to other countries that have introduced similar policies because of the relative importance of foreign shocks and the weak linkage between monetary policy and inflation. The study of both developing iand developed countries and also countries with and without explicit inflation targeting policies has shown that there is no evidence to substantiate that South Africa should have less success at curtailing inflation through the adoption of inflation targeting. The study explores the economic history and tradition of each of the evaluated countries, namely Australia, Chile, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States of America, with specific reference to the history and cause of inflation. It is summarised for each individual country based on the policy or approach that the country has adopted and the apparent success thereof. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Vanaf 1989 het al hoe meer lande inflasie mikpunte as deel van hul monetêre beleid ingestel en baie van hulle het groot sukses behaal. Hierdie klaarblyklike sukses het ander daarnatoe gelei om te glo dat inflasieteikens ook van belang in minder ontwikkelde lande, Suid- Afrika ingesluit, mag wees. Die konsep van inflasiemikpunte het inteendeel positiewe reaksie uitgelok as 'n potensiële antwoord op toenemende moeilike valute teikens en is in Suid- Afrika vanaf 23 Februarie 2000 toegepas. Inflasieteikens veroorsaak dat wisselkoerse weens buitelandse ekonomiese skokke minder buigbaar is, dit verlaag dus die outomatiese stabiliteit wat buigbare wisselkoerse voorsien. Daar word gesê dat Suid- Afrika, in vergelyking met ander lande, wat die beleid alreeds toegepas het, nie 'n goeie kandidaat is vir inflasieteikens is nie weens die belangrikheid van buitelandse skokke en die swak koppeling tussen monetêre beleid en inflasie. Hierdie studie, wat beide ontwikkelde en ontwikkelende lande, met of sonder formele inflasieteikens, ondersoek, dui aan dat daar geen bewys is dat Suid- Afrika minder sukses kan behaal deur die toepasssing van formele inflasieteikens nie. Die studie is gemik daarop om die ekonomiese geskiedenis en tradisie van elk van die bespreekte lande, naamlik, Australië, Chile, Duitsland, Nieu- Seeland, Suid- Afrika en die VSA te ondersoek, met spesifieke verwysing na die geskiedenis en oorsaak van inflasie in daardie lande. Elke land word volgens die beleid of benadering wat toegepas is, en die klaarblyklikr sukses daarvan, opgesom.

In this thesis, I undertake an empirical search for the existence of price and exchange rate bubbles during the inter-war European hyperinflations of Germany, Hungary and Poland. Since the choice of an appropriate policy to control inflation depends upon the true nature of the underlying process generating the inflation, the existence or non-existence of inflationary bubbles has important policy implications. If bubbles do exist, positive action will be required to counter the public's self-fulfilling expectation of a price surge. Hyperinflationary episodes have been chosen as my case study because of the dominant role that such expectations play in price determination. In the literature, there are frequently expressed concerns about empirical research into bubbles. The existence of model misspecification and the nonlinear dynamics in the fundamentals under conditions of regime switching may lead to spurious conclusions concerning the existence of bubbles. Furthermore, some stochastic bubbles may display different collapsing properties and consequently appear to be linearly stationary. Thus, the evidence against the existence of bubbles may not be reliable. In my thesis, I attempt to tackle the above empirical problems of testing for the existence of bubbles using advances in testing procedures and methodologies. Since the number of bubble solutions is infinite in the rational expectations framework, I adopt indirect tests, rather than direct tests, for the empirical study. From the findings of my empirical research, the evidence for stationary specification errors and the nonlinearity of the data series cannot be rejected, but the evidence for the existence of price and exchange rate bubbles is rejected for all the countries under study. It leads to the conclusion that the control of the inter-war European hyperinflations was attributable to control of the fundamental processes, since the dynamics of prices and exchange rates for these countries might not be driven by self-fulfilling expectations.