Skip to main content

The asymmetry of inflation or the ECB?

From this Financial Times article: In yesterday's press conference Mario Draghi was asked about the possibility of changing the ECB's inflation target. His answer is very revealing about the extreme asymmetric nature of monetary policy these days (or at least that's how the ECB sees it).

Draghi admits that the ECB is having a very difficult time reaching its target and he is now hoping this will happen by 2018. He rules out the idea of lowering the inflation target (to make reaching the target easier) because this would lead to lower inflation expectations and higher real interest rates. So what about raising the inflation target to avoid falling into the zero lower bound again (and possibly to show a stronger commitment to higher inflation)? According to Draghi it would make no sense because if they cannot reach a 2% target why would you set a higher target that you cannot reach by an even larger margin.

This might be a realistic view on how asymmetric the effects of monetary policy are these days but it also reflects on the difficulties that central banks have at communicating their targets and policies. And possibly how this confusing communication is making their actions less effective. Here are some thoughts:
  • Mario Draghi forgets that the ECB target is asymmetric in nature. The target is below (but close) to 2%. That's a signal that falling below the target is ok while being above is unacceptable. Maybe this asymmetry is partly to blame for the difficulty of reaching 2%. 
  • In his speech he clearly states that lowering inflation is always easy but that raising inflation because of the zero lower bound is much harder. But this sounds to me like a very strong argument in favor of higher targets. The fact that he does not see it that way tells us that the ECB is really averse to higher inflation.
  • The idea that the same asymmetry is present when it comes to inflation expectations might be realistic but, in my view, it sounds too pessimistic. It might be true that raising inflation is hard but not impossible. Setting a higher target should move inflation expectations in the right direction and help reach that target. The fact that he does not see it that way is, once again, a reflection of the asymmetric view of the ECB about inflation.
So maybe the asymmetry that he sees is not completely independent of the asymmetric view that the ECB and its officials clearly express every time they talk about the subject.

Interesting times for monetary policy and a reminder that we need to change the way we teach monetary policy to our students. Olivier Blanchard has some interesting suggestions for how to modify the next edition of his textbook after what we have witnessed in the crisis but I think that he might be falling short on the changes we need to explain central bank policies and their outcomes.

Antonio Fatás

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You can lower interest rates but can you raise inflation?

Last week the Bank of England lowered their interest rates. This combined with previous moves by the ECB and the Bank of Japan and the reduced probability that the US Federal Reserve will increase rates soon is a reminder that any normalization of interest rates towards positive territory among advanced economies will have to wait a few more months, or years (or decades?). The message from the Bank of England, which is not far from recent messages by the Bank of Japan or the ECB is that they could cut interest rates again if needed (or be more aggressive with QE purchases). Long-term interest rates across the world decreased even further. The current levels of long-term interest rates have made the yield curve extremely flat. And in several countries (e.g. Switzerland) interest rates at all horizons are falling into negative territory. The fact that long term interest rates is typically seen as the outcome of large purchases of assets by central banks around the world. In fact, many se...
Post a Comment
Read more

The missing lowflation revolution

It will soon be eight years since the US Federal Reserve decided to bring its interest rate down to 0%. Other central banks have spent similar number of years (or much longer in the case of Japan) stuck at the zero lower bound. In these eight years central banks have used all their available tools to increase inflation closer to their target and boost growth with limited success. GDP growth has been weak or anemic, and there is very little hope that economies will ever go back to their pre-crisis trends. Some of these trends have challenged the traditional view of academic economists and policy makers about how an economy works. Some of the facts that very few would have anticipated: - The idea that central banks cannot lift inflation rates closer to their targets over such a long horizon. - The fact that a crisis can be so persistent and that cyclical conditions can have such large permanent effects on potential output. - The slow (or inexistent) natural tendency of the economy to adj...
Post a Comment
Read more

The permanent scars of economic pessimism

Gavyn Davies at the Financial Times reflects on the growing pessimism of Central Banks regarding the growth potential of advanced economies. In the US, the Euro area or the UK, central banks are reducing their estimates of the output gap. They now think about some of the recent output losses as permanent as opposed to cyclical. It output is not far from what we consider to be potential, there is less need for central banks to act and it is more likely that we will see an earlier normalization of monetary policy towards a neutral stance. Why did they change their mind? Is this evidence consistent with the standard economic models that we use to think about cyclical developments? Measuring potential output or the slack in the economy has always been challenging. One can rely on models that capture the factors that drive potential output (such as the capital stock or productivity or demographics) or one can look at more specific indicators of idle capacity, such as capacity utilization or...
Post a Comment
Read more