The inflation targeting regime in place in Canada requires a clear understanding of the monetary policy transmission mechanism and a way to exploit knowledge of that mechanism in making policy decisions. This paper describes the Bank of Canada's current undestanding of the monetary policy transmission ...

The conduct of monetary policy in terms of interest rate or other rules has been extensively studied in recent research. This literature gives a central role to forecasts of future inflation and output, and the question of whether monetary policy should be forward- ooking has been subject to discussion ...

Central bank economists and academic economists conducting research on the design of monetary policy have made significant advances in recent years. This work has led to a clearer understanding of the desirable properties of interest rate rules, the role of announcements and communication, and the ...

Sixty years ago, Milton Friedman questioned the usefulness of the optimal control approach because of policymakers’ imperfect knowledge of the economy and favored instead a simple rule approach to monetary policy (1947, 1948). These are still live issues, despite the development of powerful techniques ...

Inflation targeting can be broadly defined as a framework for the conduct of MONETARY POLICY in which the central bank guides its instruments in order to hold inflation near a preannounced target or to bring back to the target. Although understanding the framework is straightfoward, its practical ...

Monetary policy must consider the bi­directional relationship between the economy and its central bank. It should therefore address two essential questions: first, how changes in the economy induce a reaction by the central bank, and second, how these policy changes are in turn transmitted to the ...

Following the influential work of Christiano, Eichenbaum, and Evans (2005) and Smets and Wouters (2003), many central banks are building and estimating dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models with nominal rigidities and are using them for policy analysis. This new generation of sticky ...

The emergence of inflation targeting over the last ten years represents an exciting development in central banks' approach to the conduct of monetary policy. After initial adoption by New Zealand in 1990, a growing number of central banks in industrial and emerging economies have opted for inflation ...

How do central banks choose among alternative monetary polocies? In this paper we analyze that question for an open economy following an interest rate rule. Many issues remain controversial in the design of such a rule. If inflation is targeted, as it presumably is, should the domestic interest rate ...