Inflation Targeting

Inflation targeting is a somewhat new approach to the role of Central Banks. This system was implemented in Brazil when I was a senior in college. I still remember the debate on whether inflation targeting was appropriate to a developing country like Brazil and most analysts predicted it wouldn’t last long. That said, inflation targeting has been used for approximately 20 years in Brazil.

There is a book about inflation targeting written by Pierre-Richard Agénor (University of Manchester) and by Luiz Pereira da Silva (BIS).  This book is titled “Integrated inflation targeting: Another perspective from the developing world”. It provides a wealth of information about recent experiences with inflation targeting in developing countries, including discussions about how it performed in light of the global financial crisis and the issues faced by policymakers. This is a very nice manuscript and I strongly recommend to those interested in learning more about inflation targeting.