Search

Globalization of the early 1990s is thought to have caused the loss of monetary-policy independence in India. I find that Indias monetary-policy independence is anchored in the exchange-rate regime along with its state of foreign-exchange reserves, and not necessarily in globalization per se. India significantly followed US interest rates even in the absence of globalization in the 1960s when the country faced foreign-exchange constraints and maintained a fixed exchange rate. From the mid 1970s to the early 1990s, India exercised monetary-policy independence under a floating exchange-rate regime. The loss of monetary-policy independence since the early 1990s is not attributable to globalization per se, but mainly to the stable exchange-rate policy of India, which heavily resembles the policy of the 1960s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the empirical relationship among alternative monetary aggregates (Ml and M2), output, prices, interest rates and exchange rates in India. The results of a five-variate vector error correction model are indicative of a bi-directional causality between each of the monetary aggregates and prices. Our findings of a feedback relationship make each of the monetary aggregates a poor intermediate target and informational variable. Moreover, contrary to most recent research in this area, the results are supportive of the real business-cycle view and the Keynesian monetary accommodation hypothesis rather than the monetarists' theory of the business cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]