About the Book

This volume, 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.

Contents

Part I: Introduction and Theoretical Frameworks

1. Beyond Inflation Targeting: Assessing the Impacts and Policy Alternatives
   Gerald Epstein and Erinc Yeldan
     
2. Real Exchange Rate, Monetary Policy and Employment: Economic Development in a Garden of Forking Paths
   Roberto Frenkel and Lance Taylor
      
3. Inflation Targeting and the Real Exchange Rate in a Small Economy: A Structuralist Approach
   Jose Cordero

Part II: Thematic Issues: Class Relations and Gender Impacts of Inflation Targeting

1. Income, Class and Preferences Towards Anti-Inflation and Anti-Unemployment Policies
   Arjun Jayadev
     
2. The Gendered Political Economy of Inflation Targeting: Assessing Its Impacts on Employment
   Elissa Braunstein and James Heintz
      
3. Inflation and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Non-Linear Analysis
   Robert Pollin and Andong Zhu

Part III: Inflation Targeting: Critiques and Country Specific Alternatives

1. Inflation Targeting in Brazil: 1999-2006
   Nelson H. Barbosa-Filho
     
2. Alternatives to inflation targeting in Mexico
   Luis Miguel Galindo and Jaime Ros
     
3. Five Years of Competitive and Stable Real Exchange Rate in Argentina, 2002-2007
   Roberto Frenkel and Martin Rapetti
     
4. A General Equilibrium Assessment of Twin-Targeting in Turkey
   Cagatay Telli, Ebru Voyvoda and Erinc Yeldan
     
5. Employment Targeting Central Bank Policy: A Policy Proposal for South Africa
   Gerald Epstein
     
6. Inflation Targeting and the Design of Monetary Policy in India
   Raghbendra Jha
     
7. Towards An Alternative Monetary Policy in the Philippines
   Joseph Lim
     
8. Monetary Policy in Vietnam: Alternatives to Inflation Targeting
   Le Anh Tu Packard

December 4, 2009.