Les cibleurs d’inflation sont-ils monomaniaques?

This article investigates whether the inflation targeting strategy implies in fact a higher degree of conservatism than other monetary policy regimes. To this end, we use an original indicator of Central Banks’ conservatism, based on the Taylor Curve, as suggested by Levieuge and Lucotte [2013]. Estimations based on the propensity score matching method indicate that inflation targeters have a significantly higher relative preference for inflation stabilization than non-targeters. This questions the inflation targeting strategy in that the recent financial turmoil has shown that price stability is not a sufficient condition to ensure macroeconomic and financial stability.