Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Welcome remarks: a Norwegian perspective
- 3 Reflections on inflation targeting
- 4 Inflation targeting at twenty: achievements and challenges
- 5 Inflation targeting twenty years on: where, when, why, with what effects and what lies ahead?
- 6 How did we get to inflation targeting and where do we need to go to now? A perspective from the US experience
- 7 Inflation control around the world: why are some countries more successful than others?
- 8 Targeting inflation in Asia and the Pacific: lessons from the recent past
- 9 Inflation targeting and asset prices
- 10 The optimal monetary policy instrument, inflation versus asset price targeting, and financial stability
- 11 Expectations, deflation traps and macroeconomic policy
- 12 Heterogeneous expectations, learning and European inflation dynamics
- 13 Inflation targeting and private sector forecasts
- 14 Inflation targeting, transparency and inflation forecasts: evidence from individual forecasters
- 15 Gauging the effectiveness of quantitative forward guidance: evidence from three inflation targeters
- 16 Macro-modelling with many models
- 17 Have crisis monetary policy initiatives jeopardised central bank independence?
- 18 Inflation targeting: learning the lessons from the financial crisis
- 19 The financial crisis as an opportunity to strengthen inflation-targeting frameworks
- 20 ‘Leaning against the wind’ is fine, but will often not be enough
- 21 Inflation targeting, capital requirements and ‘leaning against the wind’: some comments
- Index
2 - Welcome remarks: a Norwegian perspective
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Welcome remarks: a Norwegian perspective
- 3 Reflections on inflation targeting
- 4 Inflation targeting at twenty: achievements and challenges
- 5 Inflation targeting twenty years on: where, when, why, with what effects and what lies ahead?
- 6 How did we get to inflation targeting and where do we need to go to now? A perspective from the US experience
- 7 Inflation control around the world: why are some countries more successful than others?
- 8 Targeting inflation in Asia and the Pacific: lessons from the recent past
- 9 Inflation targeting and asset prices
- 10 The optimal monetary policy instrument, inflation versus asset price targeting, and financial stability
- 11 Expectations, deflation traps and macroeconomic policy
- 12 Heterogeneous expectations, learning and European inflation dynamics
- 13 Inflation targeting and private sector forecasts
- 14 Inflation targeting, transparency and inflation forecasts: evidence from individual forecasters
- 15 Gauging the effectiveness of quantitative forward guidance: evidence from three inflation targeters
- 16 Macro-modelling with many models
- 17 Have crisis monetary policy initiatives jeopardised central bank independence?
- 18 Inflation targeting: learning the lessons from the financial crisis
- 19 The financial crisis as an opportunity to strengthen inflation-targeting frameworks
- 20 ‘Leaning against the wind’ is fine, but will often not be enough
- 21 Inflation targeting, capital requirements and ‘leaning against the wind’: some comments
- Index
Summary
Dear conference participants, it is a great pleasure for me to welcome all of you to the Sixth Norges Bank Monetary Policy Conference. Norges Bank and the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability are privileged to host this conference, which has attracted the interest of such a distinguished group of international experts.
Given that we are going to talk about inflation targeting, I will take this opportunity to set the stage by summarising the Norwegian experience. Since the beginning of the 1980s there has been a broad international consensus that monetary policy must be geared towards price stability. This paradigm shift also reached Norway, but not until the end of that decade.
The starting point for us in Norway was a high and variable inflation rate of around 8 to 9 per cent combined with frequent devaluations. In the period from 1976 to 1986 the government carried out no fewer than ten de facto devaluations of the krone. The devaluation in 1986 would become the last in the series, however. The government recognised that the repeated devaluations were ineffective; confidence had been lost, and inflation had soared without a fall in unemployment. There was a broad political agreement that Norway should follow the rest of the world.
In the first phase of the new era (see Figure 2.1) Norway pursued a fixed exchange rate against European currencies with no devaluations.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Twenty Years of Inflation TargetingLessons Learned and Future Prospects, pp. 7 - 12Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010