Beyond Inflation Targeting: Assessing the Impacts and Policy Alternatives

This volume, edited by Gerald Epstein and Erinc Yeldan, develops concrete, country-specific alternatives to inflation targeting, the dominant policy framework of central bank policy that focuses on keeping inflation in the low single digits to the virtual exclusion of other key goals. Chapters focus on alternative policy goals, such as employment creation, poverty reduction and sustainable development, and also includes thematic chapters on class attitudes toward inflation and unemployment and the gender impacts of restrictive monetary policy. The authors also show that to reach policy goals beyond inflation control, central banks must use a broader range of financial policy instrument.

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This book, written by an international team of economists, develops concrete, country specific alternatives to inflation targeting, the dominant policy framework of central bank policy that focuses on keeping inflation in the low single digits to the virtual exclusion of other key goals such as employment creation, poverty reduction and sustainable development.

The book includes thematic chapters, including analyses of class attitudes toward inflation and unemployment and the gender impacts of restrictive monetary policy. Other chapters propose improved monetary frameworks for Argentina, Brazil, India, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, Turkey, and Vietnam. Policy frameworks that are explored include employment targeting, and targeting a stable and competitive real exchange rate. The authors also show that to reach a larger number of targets, including higher employment and stable inflation, central banks must use a larger number of instruments, including capital management techniques.

This volume offers concrete, socially valuable alternatives that economists, policy makers, students and interested laypeople should consider before adopting one size fits all, often inadequate, policies that have become a virtual policy making fad.