Why is inflation targeting adopted?

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, inflation targeting (IT) has been conducted in many countries and the number of the countries has been increasing rapidly. The outcomes of adopting IT has been discussed, however, the incentives of adopting IT is not fully examined. This study focuses on this issue empirically. The results are clearly divided into two types of countries. In developed countries, budget/GDP ratio, central bank credibility, exchange rate stability, and openness of the economy are deterministic elements of adopting IT, however interestingly, inflation itself does not play any roles of adopting IT. On the other hand, only inflation is the deterministic element of adopting IT in developing countries. Other elements, that are deterministic elements in developed countries, do not any effects on introducing IT. Moreover, countries would not like to limit the scope of policies when the economy’s openness is high.