Inflation Targeting, Sudden Stops and the Cost of Fear of Floating
The series Working Papers on Economics is published by the Office for Economic Studies at the Banco de la República (Central Bank of Colombia). It contributes to the dissemination and promotion of the work by researchers from the institution. This series is indexed at Research Papers in Economics (RePEc).
On multiple occasions, these works have been the result of collaborative work with individuals from other national or international institutions. The works published are provisional, and their authors are fully responsible for the opinions expressed in them, as well as for possible mistakes. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Banco de la República or its Board of Directors.
Sudden stops seem to create the perfect environment for disinflation, especially when central banks defend the exchange rate by increasing interest rates. We propose a variation of the output gap model that incorporates the sudden stop shock. The use of the model in policy analysis shows that fear of floating is pro-cyclical and inflation targeting, counter-cyclical. The model is run for Brazil, Colombia, Korea and Thailand, the inflation targeting countries that have recently had sudden stops. The three policy implications direct attention to the medium and long run. First, the central banks that are targeting inflation should focus on inflation, not during but after the sudden stop. Second, they could complement this medium term view by monitoring a measure of inflation of non traded goods. Third, the monetary authorities could eventually introduce an escape clause to the CPI inflation target under a sharp depreciation.
