January 2012 special supplemental issue contents
Inflation Targeting: A Canadian Perspective

by Angelo Melino
University of Toronto

Abstract

Inflation targeting in Canada recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary. As a monetary policy framework, it has been extremely successful and has earned widespread support. But the recent financial crisis has provided the largest challenge to the inflation-targeting framework since the political controversy that followed its introduction. The Bank of Canada, like many other central banks, is thinking hard about how it can contribute to financial stability and how to integrate financial stability concerns with its inflation-targeting framework. I expect that we'll see a number of responses in Canada to financial stability concerns, but the basic inflation-targeting framework will not be much affected. The recent crisis has crowded out discussion of issues such as inflation targeting versus price-level-path targeting, and the appropriate rate of increase in the price level.

JEL Codes: E52, E58.

 
Full article (PDF, 27 pages 318 kb)
Discussion by Charles Goodhart