Choosing A Taylor Rule With Limited Data Availability: The Benchmark Approach

In this paper, we propose and test a new methodology that aims to select the best performing monetary policy rule when macroeconomic data are very limited, as is often the case for developing countries. The methodology is based on calculating economic losses during the periods when a country implicitly followed an assumed rule and when its central bank exercised discretion. For countries with short data spans where such analysis is not possible, we propose adopting the rules that historically worked well for their peers. As an intermediate step, we develop a novel approach to the calculation of the equilibrium real interest rate for developing countries that accounts for their substantial risk premia and the expected real appreciation of the domestic currency. The methodology is then applied to Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine to construct the optimal policy rate path and contrast it with the actual one.