Economic Rationale --- Inflation rate should be refered/targeted?

The European Central Bank (ECB) is well known as a conservative central bank which adapts German model of monetary policy. The ECB is independent from government body and not allowed to have a contact with any community to determine their policy. Also the ECB has a little accountablity on economic situation as it is only interested in the inflation control. The ECN settle the reference inflation rate as 2%. This is different from the target inflation rate used by the Bank of England (BoE).


Focusing on the ECB monetary policy, it has been respected as the most stable inflation controlling one among all European Union (EU) members. According to the Barro-Gordom model, as the central bank with the lowest and stable inflation cotrol leads the monetary unions, all the member country of monetary union are benefited from the central bank. Barro-Gordom model indicates that the unemployment is structural and always the natural rate in the long-run so if the central bank sets the prefrence of the inflation rate lower, it enables the inflation rate stable over time. Also the country prefering higher inflation rate and lower unemployment does not success their policy to reduce the unemployment rate in the long run and the inflation rate eventually goes up in the long run. Therefure, Barro-Gordon model clarifies that countries would be better to follow the policy with lower inflation rate preference.

The ECB manages to control the inflaiton rate by means of the nominal interest rate. The ECB has a parliament constituted of representatives from all European Monetary Union (EMU) member nations. These representatives vote for the changing nominal interest rate. The decision is based on the majority voting system and all country have an equal power of vote.


On the other hand, there is a counter argument against determining the nominal interest rate by means of the inflation rate. Taylor argued that the output gap should be referred to settle the interest rate. Taylor indicated the importance of the output gap which is the gap between the potential economic activity level and the current economic acitivity level. This implies that the nominal interest should be changed not to target the inflation rate but to fill the output gap. In order to fill the output gap, if the real interest rate is lower the nominal interest rate should be increased and if the real interest rate is higher then the nominal interest rate should be declined regardless of the inflation rate.