Studying the Effect of Time Inconsistency on Inflation in Iran Using the FMOC Approach

In macroeconomics, we can find evidence of time inconsistency in cases like tradeoff between inflation and unemployment. Generally, the difference between ex ante and ex post optimalities is known as ‘time inconsistency’. Subject to a certain unemployment rate, when the expected rate of inflation is low, the inflation rate will, indeed, be low too. This will give an incentive to the central bank and authorities to enforce a policy to decrease the unemployment rate and increase the society’s welfare based on time inconsistency and their own discretionary power. Accordingly, this paper studies the time inconsistency issue and its effects on inflation and seeks to investigate the existence or non-existence of time inconsistency and its rate in the monetary policies of Iran. In this regard, by applying the model suggested by Clark et al. (1999) and Richard Mash (2000) for Iran based on the data related to the period of 1971-2014, we show that, in these years, there has existed time inconsistency in Iran’s economy and that the inflationary bias decreased from 9.68% in the period of 1971-1994 to 8.15% in the period of 1995-2014; hence, time inconsistency in the period of 1971-1994 had more effect in comparison with the period of 1995-2014.