Sacrifice Ratios and Inflation Targeting: The Role of Credibility

Publicado en

  • International Finance

Resumen

  • Proponents of inflation targeting (IT) claim that it increases the credibility of central banks, which in turn should result in smaller sacrifice ratios (SRs) – that is, the ratio of output losses to the change in trend inflation during disinflations. We show that IT does indeed reduce SRs, but only if the disinflation is long: in a four-year-long disinflation, our estimates suggest that IT reduces SRs by at least 60%. In fast disinflations, IT does not affect SRs. These results suggest that IT and fast disinflations are substitute alternatives in enhancing the credibility of disinflationary processes and reducing their costs.

fecha de publicación

  • 2014

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