What Drives Monetary Policy in Post-Crisis East Asia? Interest Rate or Exchange Rate Monetary Policy Rules

This paper estimates a simple small open macroeconomic model to analyse the effectiveness of monetary policy rules (MPRs) where either the nominal interest rate or the nominal exchange rate is the policy instrument. The aim is to ascertain which of those MPRs are best suited for a selection of inflation targeting economies of Asia. Normally, one would associate inflation targeting with interest rate rules but it is thought that, due to fear of floating, exchange rate rules may well be more effective given the openness of these economies. It is found that interest rate rules seem to better reflect the prevailing policy regime than exchange rate rules. It is also found that stronger relationships pertaining to the interest rate rules are found in the case of Korea and Thailand than for Indonesia and the Philippines. Exchange rates appear to be very influential in determining the value of the nominal interest rate but not in a policy sense. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.