The main goal of this paper is to analyze empirically the effect of the adoption of the inflation targeting to both the inflation rate and the economic growth, allowing for different impacts for developed and developing countries. We collected data on inflation and economic growth rates for 51 countries between 1995 and 2004, classifying the countries adopting inflation targeting as the treatment group and the remaining set of countries as the control group. The methodology adopted was a panel data model. The results we get indicate that for developing countries those adopting inflation targeting present inflation rate 3.8% below the average of those not adopting the regime, and economic growth rate 0.8% below the average of the control group. For the developed countries, the results are the opposite but in lower magnitude (1.2% and 0.1%, respectively). One possible explanation is that for the PED the decrease in the output growth may be related to the difficulty they face in building their credibility, since they have to commit to more restrictive policies and a strict design for the regime.
inflation targeting; panel data; dynamic panel; developed countries; developing countries
