History and Utilizing Countries
Early proposals of monetary systems targeting the price level or the inflation rate, rather than the exchange rate, followed the general crisis of the gold standard after World War I. Irving Fisher proposed a "compensated dollar" system in which the gold content in paper money would vary with the price of goods in terms of gold, so that the price level in terms of paper money would stay fixed. Fisher's proposal was a first attempt to target prices while retaining the automatic functioning of the gold standard. In his Tract on Monetary Reform (1923), John Maynard Keynes advocated what we would now call an inflation targeting scheme. In the context of sudden inflations and deflations in the international economy right after World War I, Keynes recommended a policy of exchange rate flexibility, appreciating the currency as a response to international inflation and depreciating it when there are international deflationary forces, so that internal prices remained more or less stable.
Interest in inflation targeting schemes waned during the Bretton Woods system (1944–1971), as they are normally inconsistent with exchange rate pegs such as those prevailing during three decades after World War II. Inflation targeting was pioneered in New Zealand in 1990, and is now also in use by the central banks in United Kingdom (Bank of England), Canada (Bank of Canada), Australia (Reserve Bank of Australia), South Korea (Bank of Korea), Egypt, South Africa (South African Reserve Bank), Iceland (Central Bank of Iceland) and Brazil (Brazilian Central Bank), among other countries, and there is some empirical evidence that it does what its advocates claim.
| Country | Year adopted inflation targeting | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| New Zealand | 1990 | The pioneer; See Section 8: Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act of 1989 |
| Chile | 1991 | First in Latin America |
| Canada | 1991 | |
| Brazil | 1999 | |
| Australia | 1993 | |
| Israel | 1991 | |
| Mexico | 1999 | |
| South Africa | 2000 |
Read more about this topic: Inflation Targeting
Famous quotes containing the words history and, history and/or countries:
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“In some countries a hunting parson is no uncommon sight. Such a one might make a good shepherd’s dog, but is far from being the Good Shepherd.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)