Four years after its outbreak, the Asian crisis continues to confound experts: a region whose countries had long been considered paragons of successful economic development is mired in financial collapse and deep recession. By contrast, Latin America -with the important exceptions of Brazil and Ecuador- ...

For decades until the early 1990s, Latin America was the region of the world with the highest average level of inflation. High inflation was the cumulative result of a long history of activist economic policies based on a disregard for macroeconomic stability. These policies culminated in large ...

Policymarkers and the academic community have reached an increasing consensus during the last two decades: the primary objective of monetary policy should be to control inflation (see, for example, King, 1999). A less settled issue is the appropriate role of the central bank regarding other, secondary ...

Central banks resort to a variety of alternative arrangements in formulating, conducting, and communicating monetary policy. One increasingly popular type of arrangement is based on a target range for inflation. In this setup the conduct of monetary policy is oriented to keeping inflation withing ...

In most industrial countries, official interest rate changes tend to be 'smooth'. That is, rates are adjusted relatively infrequently and is small steps. Yet the path of interest rates that emerges as optimal from macroeconomic models is, in general, considerably more volatile. So are the paths of ...

This paper explores the connection between the monetary transmission mechanism -the channel through which a change in monetary policy affects the economy- and the choice of monetary policy rules to guide central bank decisions. Differente views of the monetary transmission mechanism are readily apparent ...

Monetary policy comprises the rules and actions adopted by the central bank to achieve its objectives. In most countries the primary goal of monetary policy is price stability. However, the mandate of many central banks also encompasses other objectives, including attainment of fullemployment, domestic ...

The decade since 1990 has been a period of innovation in monetary policy. Around the world, many countries have adopted inflation targeting as their basic policy framework. Different countries have tried different techniques for achieving inflatio targets, such as different choices of policy instruments.

Over the last decade or so, addressing financial instability ¿has risen to the top of national and international policy agendas. Policymakers in general and central banks in particular have been allocating increasing resources to the monitoring of potential threats to financial stability and the ...

The job of central bankers is to use the monetary powers granted to them to promote price stability, sustainable growth, and a stable financial system. They do this in an environment fraught with unavoidable uncertainties. But, in conducting policy, there is one uncertainty that policymakers can and ...