Monetary Policy and Inflation Modeling in a more Open Economy in South Africa.

South Africa in the 1990s became globally more integrated after years of isolation. Opening the trade and capital accounts gave impetus to a monetary policy regime change to inflation targeting from 2000, after a costly transitional period of monetary mismanagement with low policy transparency. Chan...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Aron, J, Muellbauer, J
Format: Working paper
Language:English
Published: 2008
Subjects:
_version_ 1797091622987497472
author Aron, J
Muellbauer, J
author_facet Aron, J
Muellbauer, J
author_sort Aron, J
collection OXFORD
description South Africa in the 1990s became globally more integrated after years of isolation. Opening the trade and capital accounts gave impetus to a monetary policy regime change to inflation targeting from 2000, after a costly transitional period of monetary mismanagement with low policy transparency. Changes in openness can, however, disrupt the inflation forecasting on which targeting monetary policies depend. This chapter demonstrates how the central bank’s own producer price inflation equation in its core model can be improved by taking account of greater openness, using both innovative time-series openness measures and a more conventional measure. The model has a greatly improved fit and stability over longer samples when also including the real exchange rate and the interest rate differential (making explicit the exchange rate channel of monetary transmission) and asymmetric food price inflation. Moreover, there is a role for the level of the output gap rather than simply a short-run effect, as in the central bank’s model. This helps mitigate the arguments in current South African debate regarding the apparent unconcern of inflation targeting policy for the level of economic activity.
first_indexed 2024-03-07T03:35:41Z
format Working paper
id oxford-uuid:bc34cf1f-ad5f-4120-aa22-1aad443d2c4d
institution University of Oxford
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-07T03:35:41Z
publishDate 2008
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:bc34cf1f-ad5f-4120-aa22-1aad443d2c4d2022-03-27T05:22:41ZMonetary Policy and Inflation Modeling in a more Open Economy in South Africa.Working paperhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042uuid:bc34cf1f-ad5f-4120-aa22-1aad443d2c4dEconomicsFinancial economicsEnglishDepartment of Economics - ePrints2008Aron, JMuellbauer, JSouth Africa in the 1990s became globally more integrated after years of isolation. Opening the trade and capital accounts gave impetus to a monetary policy regime change to inflation targeting from 2000, after a costly transitional period of monetary mismanagement with low policy transparency. Changes in openness can, however, disrupt the inflation forecasting on which targeting monetary policies depend. This chapter demonstrates how the central bank’s own producer price inflation equation in its core model can be improved by taking account of greater openness, using both innovative time-series openness measures and a more conventional measure. The model has a greatly improved fit and stability over longer samples when also including the real exchange rate and the interest rate differential (making explicit the exchange rate channel of monetary transmission) and asymmetric food price inflation. Moreover, there is a role for the level of the output gap rather than simply a short-run effect, as in the central bank’s model. This helps mitigate the arguments in current South African debate regarding the apparent unconcern of inflation targeting policy for the level of economic activity.
spellingShingle Economics
Financial economics
Aron, J
Muellbauer, J
Monetary Policy and Inflation Modeling in a more Open Economy in South Africa.
title Monetary Policy and Inflation Modeling in a more Open Economy in South Africa.
title_full Monetary Policy and Inflation Modeling in a more Open Economy in South Africa.
title_fullStr Monetary Policy and Inflation Modeling in a more Open Economy in South Africa.
title_full_unstemmed Monetary Policy and Inflation Modeling in a more Open Economy in South Africa.
title_short Monetary Policy and Inflation Modeling in a more Open Economy in South Africa.
title_sort monetary policy and inflation modeling in a more open economy in south africa
topic Economics
Financial economics
work_keys_str_mv AT aronj monetarypolicyandinflationmodelinginamoreopeneconomyinsouthafrica
AT muellbauerj monetarypolicyandinflationmodelinginamoreopeneconomyinsouthafrica