Inflation Targeting And Exchange Rate Regimes In Emerging Markets

This paper investigates the effects of the adoption of inflation targeting (IT) on the choice of exchange rate regime in emerging markets (EMs), conditional on certain macroeconomic conditions. Using a large sample of EMs and after controlling for the selection bias associated with the adoption of IT, we find that IT countries on average have a relatively more flexible exchange rate regime than other EMs. However, the flexibility of the exchange rate regime shows strong heterogeneity among IT countries depending on their degree of openness and exposure to FX risks. Moreover, we find that the marginal effect of IT adoption on the exchange rate flexibility increases with the duration of the IT regime in place, and with the propensity scores to adopt it.

This paper explores the role of exchange rates in emerging economies with inflation-targeting regimes, an issue that has become especially germane during the current episode of financial turmoil and volatile capital flows. Under inflation targeting, the interest rate is the main monetary policy tool for influencing activity and inflation, and there is little agreement about the appropriate role of the exchange rate.The exchange rate is a more important monetary policy tool for emerging economies that have adopted inflation targeting than it is for inflation-targeting advanced economies. Inflation-targeting emerging economies generally have less flexible exchange rate arrangements and intervene more frequently in the foreign exchange market than their advanced economy counterparts. The enhanced role of the exchange rate reflects these economies' greater vulnerability to exchange rate shocks and their less developed financial markets. However, their sharper focus on the exchange rate may cause some confusion about the commitment of their central banks to achieve the inflation target and may also complicate policy implementation. Global inflation pressures, greater exchange rate volatility, and the financial stresses from the global financial turmoil that began in mid-2007 are heightening these tensions.

We analyze coordination of monetary and exchange rate policy in a two-sector model of a small open economy featuring imperfect substitution between domestic and foreign financial assets. Our central finding is that management of the exchange rate greatly enhances the efficacy of inflation targeting. In a flexible exchange rate system, inflation targeting incurs a high risk of indeterminacy where macroeconomic fluctuations can be driven by self-fulfilling expectations. Moreover, small inflation shocks may escalate into much larger increases in inflation ex post. Both problems disappear when the central bank leans heavily against the wind in a managed float.

A growing number of countries are anchoring their monetary policy through explicit inflation targeting. This policy has already scored remarkable successes in several countries, establishing central bank credibility, and reining in inflation where it had long been stubbornly high. But implementing inflation targets raises many difficult questions. What prerequisites must an economy and its institutions meet for the strategy to work? What choices should central banks make from the menu of possible variations on the basic approach? This book summarizes the discussions in a seminar at which economists and policymakers from ten countries reviewed their experiences with inflation targeting.

In the aftermath of the Asian/global financial crises of 1997-98, how should emerging markets now structure their exchange rate systems to prevent new crises from occurring? This study challenges current orthodoxy by advocating the revival of intermediate exchange rate regimes. In so doing, Williamson presents a reasoned challenge to the new prevailing attitude which claims that all countries involved in the international capital markets need to polarize to one of the extreme regimes (to a fixed rate with either a currency board or dollarization, or to a lightly-managed float). He concludes that although there is some truth in the allegation that intermediate regimes are vulnerable to speculative crises, they still offer offsetting advantages. He also contends that it would be possible to redesign them to be more flexible so as to reduce their vulnerability to crises.

Foreign exchange intervention is widely used as a policy tool, particularly in emerging markets, but many facets of this tool remain limited, especially in the context of flexible exchange rate regimes. The Latin American experience can be informative because some of its largest countries adopted floating exchange rate regimes and inflation targeting while continuing to intervene in foreign exchange markets. This edited volume reviews detailed accounts from several Latin American countries’ central banks, and it provides insight into how and with what aim many interventions were decided and implemented. This book documents the effectiveness of intervention and pays special attention to the role of foreign exchange intervention policy within inflation-targeting monetary frameworks. The main lesson from Latin America’s foreign exchange interventions, in the context of inflation targeting, is that the region has had a considerable degree of success. Transparency and a clear communication policy have been key. For economies that are not highly dollarized, rules-based intervention helped contain financial instability and build international reserves while preserving inflation targets. The Latin American experience can help other countries in the design and implementation of their policies.

This is the fifth chapter of a forthcoming monograph entitled "On Implementing Full-Fledged Inflation-Targeting Regimes: Saying What You Do and Doing What You Say." It examines whether certain conditions have to be met before emerging economies can adopt an inflation-targeting regime and provides some empirical evidence on the matter. The issues analyzed are the priority of inflation targeting over other goals, the absence of fiscal dominance, central bank independence, the degree of control over the policy interest rate, a sound methodology for forecasting, and the soundness of financial institutions and markets, and resilience to changes in exchange rates and interest rates.