Institutions, arrangements and preferences for inflation stability: Evidence and lessons from a panel data analysis

Stefan Krause Montalbert and Fabio Mendez (fmendez1@loyola.edu)

Journal of Macroeconomics, 2008, vol. 30, issue 1, 282-307

Abstract: We study how monetary, exchange-rate and other institutional arrangements are associated with policy makers' preferences for inflation stability. We argue that focusing on policy intentions, represented by these preferences, constitutes a better way of evaluating policy behavior, instead of looking at inflation outcomes that may be unavoidable at times. Using a panel of 34 countries over a period of 24 years we find that a high degree of preference for inflation stability is significantly correlated only with central bank independence and membership to the European Economic and Monetary Union for low inflation countries, whereas for high inflation countries only strict inflation targeting and, to some extent, central bank independence, are relevant for inflation stabilizing policies. Finally, we find no robust evidence suggesting that either adopting an exchange rate anchor or employing fiscal policy are associated with an inflation averse behavior.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (27)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0164-0704(06)00089-9
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jmacro:v:30:y:2008:i:1:p:282-307

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Macroeconomics is currently edited by Douglas McMillin and Theodore Palivos

More articles in Journal of Macroeconomics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu (repec@elsevier.com).