Monetary Aggregates as Targets: Some Theoretical Aspects

In the mid-1970s the Bank of Canada, along with a number of other central banks, began to set explicit targets for monetary growth and to emphasize the long-run role of monetary aggregates in controlling the rapid upward trend of prices. There are three distinct ways of viewing and interpreting a policy of setting growth targets for monetary aggregates. The first is associated with the work of William Poole, the second is derived from the reduced-form model initially developed at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and the third, which the author has labeled the feedback- rule approach, is related to the techniques developed within central banks to implement the policy of monetary targeting. In this paper the author sets forth the logic and examines the implications of these three methods when the principal aim of policy is reducing the rate of inflation. He also examines the question of gradualist versus "cold-shower" policies and the criteria for selecting a monetary aggregate as a policy target.