Optimal Inflation Targets, Inflation Contracts and Political Cycles

It has been widely accepted that politically induced variance can be generated when the wage contract is written before an election. In this paper, we show that inflation contracts and inflation targets can eliminate both the inflation bias and politically induced variance, if electoral uncertainty is merely due to different preferences. In contrast to the independent central bank that is based on cooperation between competing parties prior to the target can be delegated by the winning party after election. Concern for reputation can lead to the convergence of the inflation targets assigned by different parties. We also consider the case where uncertsinty is caused not only by different preferences, but also by different desired rates inflation. We show that it is quite possible to reduce inflation but increase the variances of inflation and output by adopting the inflation target regime.central bank independence; inflation contract; inflation target; and electoral uncertainty.

Central-Bank Independence, Economic Behavior, and Optimal Term Lengths: Comment

Waller and Walsh (1996) argue that the optimal length of the central banker can exceed one period when the central bank is conservative enough. However, the optimal conservativeness is unlikely to be exogenous. In this note we show how the optimal conservativeness and the optimal term length are determined simultaneously in the framework of Waller and Walsh. Furthermore, we extend the study to the inflation contract and the inflation target regimes. Under both regimes, the optimal parameter of the conservativeness is independet of the term length and is always 1. Moreover, it is possible of have an optimal multi-term central banker under both the state-contingent inflation contract regime and the state-contingent inflation target regime.central bank independence; inflation target; optimal term length