This paper reviews the first five years’ experience with inflation targeting in the United Kingdom. It concludes that inflation performance was not significantly different under inflation targeting than predicted by a VAR model estimated in the period prior to participation in the exchange rate mechanism (ERM). Both short- and long-term interest rates were lower than predicted, however, which is consistent with the interpretation that some gains in credibility were achieved under the inflation targeting regime.

Especially since the operational introduction as central bank monetary policy framework in the early 1990s in New Zealand, the United Kingdom (UK), Canada and Sweden, inflation targeting has gained both empirical and theoretical relevance as a monetary policy strategy. In this paper I relate to inflation targeting theory and its framework in the UK. For that purpose the author first regards the development of inflation targeting in respect to other monetary policy strategies. He answers the question what the actual target variable is and why one would want to have inflation being low and stable. Then there is some complexity because the development of inflation targeting has to be viewed in relation to paradigmatic debates between Monetarist and New-Keynesian insights. He present the two fundamental views of how an inflation targeting framework should be modelled. By stating some equations from basic theoretical literature, he gives an overview about the different characteristics of that monetary policy strategy and how there is still controversy about the way of modelling. One chapter is concerned with the operational framework in the UK, including statements to historical developments at the Bank of England. The present monetary policy framework will be reviewed in detail relating to the Bank's publication policy and the inflation forecasting process. The Bank of England's model of the transmission mechanism is reviewed. This includes the interest rate setting process, the role of money and the relationship between inflation and inflation expectations. Finally, he discusses some economic effects that changed the British economy since the introduction of inflation targeting.

The main objective of this paper is to identify a set of leading indicators of inflation for the United Kingdom, and discuss the conceptual issues pertaining to inflation targeting. The main conclusions are that narrow money has strong leading indicator properties for inflation, while broad money does not. Long yields appear to have some information for the GDP deflator, and headline inflation, and short yields for underlying inflation. Spreads between commercial paper and gilts, and the yield curve, have very little predictive information on inflation. An interesting conclusion is that while the nominal effective exchange rate is not a good predictor of inflation, the sterling-deutsche mark exchange rate appears to have weak predictive information on the targeted measure of inflation.

In this speech, Charles Bean, Chief Economist and member of the Monetary Policy Committee, reviews the background to the adoption of an inflation target in 1992 and the subsequent development of the regime, in particular the delegation of operational responsibility for monetary policy to the Bank of England in 1997 and the associated institutional framework. He goes on to explain some aspects of the way policy is formulated and conducted at the Bank, relating it to some of the burgeoning literature on inflation targeting. He next reviews some aspects of performance since the Bank's independence and concludes with a discussion of the question of how monetary policy should respond to asset price booms and high rates of debt accumulation.

Experience with monetary targeting suggests that although it successfully controlled inflation in Switzerland and especially Germany, the special conditions that made it work reasonably well in those two countries are unlikely to be satisfied elsewhere. Inflation targeting is more likely to improve economic performance in countries that choose to have an independent domestic monetary policy, but there are subtleties in how inflation targeting is done. Lessons from industrial countries should be useful to central banks designing a framework for monetary policy.