Essays on Monetary Policy, Monetary Transmission and Inflation of Indonesia using General Equilibrium Model

The first essay attempts to explain how the economy responds to transient exogenous exchange rate and cost-push shocks using a small open economy New Keynesian dynamic general equilibrium model that incorporates prices and wage stickiness and cost channel of interest rate to inflation. The model shows that a low degree of prices and wage rigidity, high reliance on imports and inflation-biased monetary policy, increases exchange rate pass-through to domestic and consumer prices. The model demonstrates that the transient nature of cost-push shock, combined with rational expectation behaviour of price setter and full policy credibility, does not require the monetary authority in developing economy to respond to the shock by tightening monetary policy. The second essay investigates the relative importance of monetary transmission channel to inflation of passing persistent shock to the risk premium. The findings show that nominal exchange rate depreciation, triggered by a more persistent shock to interest risk premium, worsens the state of the economy in the short- and long-run. Such distinctive shocks effect is transmitted through the economy that typifies lack of response of consumer price disinflation to interest rate tightening caused by high real rigidity, strong cost channel of interest rate, strong cost channel of exchange rate pass-through and weak demand-side channel of exchange rate pass-through. The final essay analyses Indonesia‘s inflation determinant using a model that links banking to real sector, central bank and government. It explores interest rate cost-push channel in terms of cost of equity and cost of borrowing, enhances the previous findings about the lack of response of disinflation to interest rate policy tightening and discusses the nexus between monetary and banking policy. The strong interest rate cost channel has some implications for the behaviour of and policy for banking related to the achievement of the inflation target.