The Evolution of Monetary Policy Strategies in Europe

Europe has a rich monetary history. Until recently, its many central banks assigned divergent priorities and pursued policy objectives via different routes. As a result, Europe's past provides fertile ground for those seeking practical guidance to the art ofcentral banking. The importance of this past gained a new dimension with the prospect of Economic and Monetary Union in 1999, as the participating countries were faced with the challenge of bridging their differences and forging a common monetary policy strategy that would apply throughout the new currency area. At the same time, these countries sought to build forth on the theretofore most successful central bank strategies, thereby maintaining a certain degree of policy continuity. Monetary policy strategy is at the core of central banking. This strategy determines how incoming information on economic developments is translated into monetary policy actions and how these policy actions are communicated to the public at large. In other words, the strategy fulfils the dual role ofimposing a structure on the internal policy-making process and ofproviding a vehicle for the external communication of this process. The design of a monetary policy strategy thus brings together key elements such as consistency and transparency - that together determine the effectiveness and credibility ofmonetary policy.

Autorentext

Aerdt Houben is Head of the Monetary Analysis Division at De Nederlandsche Bank. He is also a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the European System of Central Banks. He has written extensively on macroeconomic policy and monetary issues for both Dutch and international publications. He was previously employed by the International Monetary Fund and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands.

Klappentext

The Evolution of Monetary Policy Strategies in Europe provides a comprehensive review of the advances in European monetary policy-making over the past decades. This book examines the considerations that determine a central bank's monetary strategy and explains how these considerations have featured in recent European monetary history. In so doing, it establishes what European monetary policy-makers have learned (or should have learned) and how they learned it. At the same time, Aerdt Houben maps out the rich monetary traditions that now flow together in the new-born Eurosystem and provides important insight into a prime influence on the system's decision-making, that is, the participating countries' past experiences. The book's distinctiveness lies in its sweeping coverage of policy developments in the individual central banks of the European Union, its penetrating analysis of the country-specific learning curves and its balanced assessment of the viability of alternative monetary policy strategies, including the strategy recently adopted by the Eurosystem. It combines theoretical insights with an in-depth empirical study of monetary policy design in Europe, highlighting the specific features that have contributed to policy success or failure. While the subject of monetary policy strategy (especially that of the Eurosystem) is currently very topical, the book's detailed information on how monetary policy has actually been implemented in each of the 15 European Union countries makes it a useful reference work with a long life-span.

Zusammenfassung
`The book is well written and uses a non-formal approach, making it accessible to an audience broader than just the inner circle of monetary policy experts. In my opinion, Houben has done a good job in providing both a complete overview of the theoretical arguments and consideration that are of relevance for an optimal choice of monetary policy strategy and the Europe's experience with these choices since 1975.'
De Economist 150:2, 2002

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- One: Conceptual Issues.- 2. Key considerations governing the choice of monetary policy strategy.- 3. Targeting options for monetary policy.- Two: The European Experience.- 4. The historical setting.- 5. The evolution of money targeting, 19751998.- 6. The evolution of exchange rate targeting.- 7. The evolution of inflation targeting, 19921998.- 8. The monetary policy strategy of the Eurosystem.- Author Index.