[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/wsi/wschap/9789811201721_0011.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Are Bygones Not Bygones? Modeling Price-Level Targeting with an Escape Clause and Lessons from the Gold Standard

In: Macroeconomic Modelling and Monetary and Exchange Rate Regimes

Author

Listed:
  • Paul R. Masson
  • Malik D. Shukayev
Abstract
Like the gold standard, price-level targeting (PT) involves not letting past deviations of inflation be bygones; both regimes return the price level (or price of gold) to its target. The experience of suspension of the gold standard in World War I and resumption in the 1920s (for some countries at a different parity) is reviewed. It suggests that, in practice, PT might operate with an escape clause that would allow rebasing of the price target in the face of large shocks. Using a calibrated general equilibrium model, we show that such an escape clause can produce multiple equilibria. For some parameterizations, there is a low credibility equilibrium (with high expectation of a reset) associated with high output volatility and frequent resets. These problems reduce, or reverse, the expectational advantage PT has over inflation targeting.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul R. Masson & Malik D. Shukayev, 2019. "Are Bygones Not Bygones? Modeling Price-Level Targeting with an Escape Clause and Lessons from the Gold Standard," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Macroeconomic Modelling and Monetary and Exchange Rate Regimes, chapter 11, pages 385-417, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:wschap:9789811201721_0011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789811201721_0011
    Download Restriction: Ebook Access is available upon purchase.
    File URL: https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789811201721_0011
    Download Restriction: Ebook Access is available upon purchase.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth Rogoff, 1985. "The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1169-1189.
    2. Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2006. "Optimal Monetary Policy under Commitment with a Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(7), pages 1877-1905, October.
    3. Michael D. Bordo, 1993. "The gold standard, Bretton Woods and other monetary regimes: a historical appraisal," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Mar, pages 123-191.
    4. Roberto M. Billi, 2011. "Optimal Inflation for the US Economy," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 29-52, July.
    5. Lohmann, Susanne, 1992. "Optimal Commitment in Monetary Policy: Credibility versus Flexibility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 273-286, March.
    6. Barro, Robert J. & Gordon, David B., 1983. "Rules, discretion and reputation in a model of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 101-121.
    7. Damjanovic, Tatiana & Damjanovic, Vladislav & Nolan, Charles, 2008. "Unconditionally optimal monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 491-500, April.
    8. Eichengreen, Barry, 1996. "Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195101133.
    9. Robert P. Flood & Peter Isard, 1988. "Monetary Policy Strategies," NBER Working Papers 2770, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Oleksiy Kryvtsov & Malik Shukayev & Alexander Ueberfeldt, 2008. "Adopting Price-Level Targeting under Imperfect Credibility," Staff Working Papers 08-3, Bank of Canada.
    11. Obstfeld, Maurice, 1996. "Models of currency crises with self-fulfilling features," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 1037-1047, April.
    12. Bayoumi, Tamim & Bordo, Michael D, 1998. "Getting Pegged: Comparing the 1879 and 1925 Gold Resumptions," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(1), pages 122-149, January.
    13. Peter N. Ireland, 2004. "Technology Shocks in the New Keynesian Model," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(4), pages 923-936, November.
    14. Gauti B. Eggertsson, 2008. "Great Expectations and the End of the Depression," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1476-1516, September.
    15. Svensson, Lars E O, 1999. "Price-Level Targeting versus Inflation Targeting: A Free Lunch?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(3), pages 277-295, August.
    16. Robert P. Flood & Peter Isard, 1989. "Monetary Policy Strategies," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 36(3), pages 612-632, September.
    17. Yetman, James, 2005. "The credibility of the monetary policy "free lunch"," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 434-451, September.
    18. Oleksiy Kryvtsov & Malik Shukayev & Alexander Ueberfeldt, 2008. "Adopting Price-Level Targeting under Imperfect Credibility: An Update," Staff Working Papers 08-37, Bank of Canada.
    19. McCallum, Bennett T., 1999. "Issues in the design of monetary policy rules," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 23, pages 1483-1530, Elsevier.
    20. Barry Eichengreen & Peter Temin, 1997. "The Gold Standard and the Great Depression," NBER Working Papers 6060, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Jensen, Henrik, 1997. "Credibility of Optimal Monetary Delegation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 911-920, December.
    22. Bordo Michael D. & Kydland Finn E., 1995. "The Gold Standard As a Rule: An Essay in Exploration," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 423-464, October.
    23. Sicsic, Pierre, 1992. "Was the franc poincare deliberately undervalued?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 69-92, January.
    24. John Driffill & Zeno Rotondi, 2006. "Credibility of Optimal Monetary Delegation: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1361-1366, September.
    25. Vestin, David, 2006. "Price-level versus inflation targeting," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1361-1376, October.
    26. Jeanne, Olivier, 1997. "Are currency crises self-fulfilling?: A test," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3-4), pages 263-286, November.
    27. Prati, Alessandro, 1991. "Poincare's stabilization : Stopping a run on government debt," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 213-239, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cateau, Gino & Shukayev, Malik, 2016. "Credibility of History-Dependent Monetary Policies and Macroeconomic Instability," Working Papers 2016-7, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    2. Iulian Vasile Popescu, 2012. "Price-Level Targeting – A Viable Alternative To Inflation Targeting?," CES Working Papers, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 4(4), pages 809-823, December.
    3. Hatcher, Michael, 2014. "Indexed versus nominal government debt under inflation and price-level targeting," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 126-145.
    4. Jiri Bohm & Jan Filacek, 2012. "Price-Level Targeting–A Real Alternative to Inflation Targeting?," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 62(1), pages 2-26, February.
    5. David Laidler & Robin Banerjee, 2008. "Unstable Foundations: Assets Markets, Inflation Targets, and Canada's 2011 Policy Choices," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 278, December.
    6. Michael Hatcher & Patrick Minford, 2016. "Stabilisation Policy, Rational Expectations And Price-Level Versus Inflation Targeting: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 327-355, April.
    7. Dib, Ali & Mendicino, Caterina & Zhang, Yahong, 2013. "Price-level targeting rules and financial shocks: The case of Canada," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 941-953.
    8. Fregert, Klas, 2011. "Belling the cat: Eli F. Heckscher on the gold standard as a discipline device," Working Papers 2011:19, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    9. Gino Cateau, 2017. "Price‐level versus inflation targeting under model uncertainty," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(2), pages 522-540, May.
    10. Michael, Hatcher, 2013. "Aggregate and welfare effects of long run inflation risk under inflation and price-level targeting," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-19, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    11. Gino Cateau & Malik Shukayev, 2022. "Limited commitment, endogenous credibility and the challenges of price‐level targeting," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(4), pages 1834-1861, November.
    12. Angelo Melino, 2011. "Moving Monetary Policy Forward: Why Small Steps - and a Lower Inflation Target - Make Sense for the Bank of Canada," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 319, January.
    13. repec:jes:wpaper:y:2012:v:4:p:809-823 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hatcher, Michael C., 2011. "Comparing inflation and price-level targeting: A comprehensive review of the literature," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2011/22, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    2. Huiping Yuan & Stephen M. Miller & Langnan Chen, 2011. "The Optimality And Controllability Of Monetary Policy Through Delegation With Consistent Targets," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(1), pages 82-106, February.
    3. Olli Castren & Tuomas Takalo, 2000. "Capital Market Development, Corporate Governance and the Credibility of Exchange Rate Pegs," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0515, Econometric Society.
    4. Garfinkel, Michelle R. & Oh, Seonghwan, 1995. "When and how much to talk credibility and flexibility in monetary policy with private information," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 341-357, April.
    5. Hatcher, Michael C., 2011. "Inflation versus price-level targeting and the zero lower bound: Stochastic simulations from the Smets-Wouters US model," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2011/24, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    6. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "Political economics and macroeconomic policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 22, pages 1397-1482, Elsevier.
    7. Joseph G. Haubrich & Joseph A. Ritter, 1996. "Dynamic commitment and imperfect policy rules," Working Papers (Old Series) 9601, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    8. Muscatelli, V Anton, 1998. "Political Consensus, Uncertain Preferences, and Central Bank Independence," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(3), pages 412-430, July.
    9. Piersanti, Giovanni, 2012. "The Macroeconomic Theory of Exchange Rate Crises," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199653126.
    10. Yuan, Huiping & Miller, Stephen M., 2010. "Implementing optimal monetary policy: Objectives and rules," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 737-745, May.
    11. McCallum, Bennett T., 1997. "Crucial issues concerning central bank independence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 99-112, June.
    12. Bordo, Michael D. & Schwartz, Anna J., 1999. "Monetary policy regimes and economic performance: The historical record," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 149-234, Elsevier.
    13. Huiping Yuan & Stephen M. Miller & Langnan Chen, 2011. "The Optimality And Controllability Of Monetary Policy Through Delegation With Consistent Targets," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(1), pages 82-106, February.
    14. Oleksiy Kryvtsov & Malik Shukayev & Alexander Ueberfeldt, 2008. "Adopting Price-Level Targeting under Imperfect Credibility: An Update," Staff Working Papers 08-37, Bank of Canada.
    15. Ramon Moreno, 2001. "Pegging and stabilization policy in developing countries," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 17-29.
    16. Cukierman, Alex & Spiegel, Yossi & Leiderman, Leonardo, 2004. "The choice of exchange rate bands: balancing credibility and flexibility," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 379-408, March.
    17. Ms. Francesca Castellani & Mr. Xavier Debrun, 2001. "Central Bank Independence and the Design of Fiscal Institutions," IMF Working Papers 2001/205, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    19. Hatcher, Michael, 2014. "Indexed versus nominal government debt under inflation and price-level targeting," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 126-145.
    20. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Exchange Rates; Modelling; Monetary Unions; Inflation Targeting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F45 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Macroeconomic Issues of Monetary Unions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wsi:wschap:9789811201721_0011. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscientific.com/page/worldscibooks .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.