Quarterly Projection Model For India

This paper outlines the key features of the production version of the quarterly projection model (QPM), which is a forward-looking open-economy gap model, calibrated to represent the Indian case, for generating forecasts and risk assessment as well as conducting policy analysis. QPM incorporates several India-specific features like the importance of the agricultural sector and food prices in the inflation process; features of monetary policy transmission and implications of an endogenous credibility process for monetary policy formulation. The paper also describes key properties and historical decompositions of some important macroeconomic variables.

India formally adopted flexible inflation targeting (FIT) in June 2016 to place price stability, defined in terms of a target CPI inflation, as the primary objective of monetary policy. In this context, the paper draws on Indian macroeconomic developments since 2000 and the experience of other countries that adopted FIT to bring out insights on how credible policy with an emphasis on a strong nominal anchor can reduce the impact of supply shocks and improve macroeconomic stability. For illustrating the key issues given the unique structural characteristics of India and the policy options under an FIT framework, the paper describes an analytical framework using the core quarterly projection model (QPM). Simulations of the QPM are carried out to illustrate the monetary policy responses under different types of uncertainty and to bring out the importance of gaining credibility for improving monetary policy efficacy.

This study documents a semi-structural model developed for Sri Lanka. This model, extended with a fiscal sector block, is expected to serve as a core forecasting model in the process of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka’s move towards flexible inflation targeting. The model includes a forward-looking endogenous interest rate and foreign exchange rate policy rules allowing for flexible change in policy behavior. It is a gap model that allows for simultaneous identification of business cycle position and long-term equilibrium. The model was first calibrated and then its data-fit was improved using Bayesian estimation technique with relatively tight priors.

The paper describes the Quarterly Projection Model (QPM) that underlies the Bank of Ghana Forecasting and Policy Analysis System (FPAS). The New Keynesian semi-structural model incorporates the main features of the Ghanaian economy, transmission channels and policy framework, including an inflation targeting central bank and aggregate demand effects of fiscal policy. The shock propagation mechanisms embedded in the calibrated QPM demonstrate its theoretical consistency, while out-of-sample forecasting accuracy validates its empirical robustness. Another important part of the QPM is endogenous policy credibility, which may aggravate policy trade-offs in the model and make it more realistic for developing economies. Historical track record of real time policy analysis and medium-term forecasting conducted with the QPM – as a component of the broader FPAS analytical organization – establishes its critical role in supporting the Bank’s forward-looking monetary policy framework.

Maintaining a reasonable degree of price stability while ensuring an adequate expansion of credit to assist economic growth have been the primary goals of monetary policy in India (Rangarajan, 1998). The concern with inflation emanates not only from the need to maintain overall macroeconomic stability, but also from the fact that inflation hits the poor particularly hard as they do not possess effective inflation hedges. Prime Minister Vajpayee recently stated that inflation is the single biggest enemy of the poor. Consequently, maintaining low inflation is seen as a necessary part of an effective anti-poverty strategy.

The Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) has developed a Forecasting and Policy Analysis System (FPAS) to serve as a reliable analytical framework for macroeconomic analysis, forecasting and decision-making under a pegged exchange rate regime. At the heart of the FPAS is the CBJ’s extended Jordan Analysis Model (JAM2.0). The model captures the monetary transmission mechanism and provides a consistent monetary policy framework that uses the exchange rate as an effective nominal anchor. This paper outlines the structure and properties of JAM2.0 and emphasizes the enhanced interplay and tradeoffs among monetary, fiscal, and foreign exchange management policies. Simulation and forecasting exercises demonstrate JAM2.0’s ability to match key stylized facts of the Jordanian economy, produce accurate forecasts of important macroeconomic variables, and explain the critical relationships among policies.

The Bank of Japan has introduced various unconventional monetary policy tools since the launch of Abenomics in 2013, to achieve the price stability target of 2 percent inflation. In this paper, a forward-looking open-economy general equilibrium model with endogenously determined policy credibility and an effective lower bound is developed for forecasting and policy analysis (FPAS) for Japan. In the model’s baseline scenario, the likelihood of the Bank of Japan reaching its 2 percent inflation target over the medium term is below 40 percent, assuming the absence of other policy reactions aside from monetary policy. The likelihood of achieving the inflation target is even lower under alternative risk scenarios. A positive shock to central bank credibility increases this likelihood, and would require less accommodative macroeconomic policies.

Contributors working at the International Monetary Fund present 14 chapters on the development of monetary policy over the past quarter century through the lens of the evolution of inflation-forecast targeting. They describe the principles and practices of inflation-forecast targeting, including managing expectations, the implementation of a forecasting and policy analysis system, monetary operations, monetary policy and financial stability, financial conditions, and transparency and communications; aspects of inflation-forecast targeting in Canada, the Czech Republic, India, and the US; and monetary policy challenges faced by low-income countries and how inflation-forecast targeting can provide an anchor in countries with different economic structures and circumstances.