Inflation Targeting and Financial Stability

A number of commentators have argued that the desirability of inflation targeting as a framework for monetary policy analysis should be reconsidered in light of the global financial crisis, on the ground that it requires neglect of the implications of monetary policy for financial stability. This paper argues that monetary policy may indeed affect the severity of risks to financial stability, but that it is possible to generalize an inflation targeting framework to take account of financial stability concerns alongside traditional stabilization objectives. The resulting framework can still be viewed as a form of flexible inflation targeting; in particular, the paper proposes a target criterion that would still imply an invariant long-run price level, despite fluctuations over time in risks to financial stability or even the occurrence of occasional financial crises.