The inflation targeting regimes adoption has as its corollary the operation of an exchange rate floating regime. This link makes some analysts to conclude that one of the costs of the inflation targeting implementation is the increase in the exchange rate volatility. This work follows the suggestion of Edwards (2006) that the evaluation of the exchange volatility, in a inflation targeting regime context, should be made by controlling the effects of the effective exchange rate regime; the analysis to be made is, therefore, one of the conditional volatility. This paper analyzes the conditional volatility by estimating a model of exponential PANEL-GARCH for 20 countries that officially adopted the inflation targeting. The different exchange regimes are added in the explanation of the volatility as control variables, following the acute classification of exchange regimes proposed by Reinhart and Rogoff (2002). The results that arise in this work are contrary to many already crystallized ideas in the literature. In the case of the emerging countries, differently of the result for developed countries, it was found that the IT adoption, ceteris paribus, reduces the conditional volatility of the real exchange rate. In spite of this at first seemingly disconcerting result, it follows a logic explained in the paper, which suggests credibility problems as an answer for the singular behavior of the exchange rate volatility of these countries. In this context, it is outlined the link among stability, fear of floating, and other emerging countries specificities, like the dimension of the exchange rate pass-trough on the prices.
exchange rate volatility; PANEL-GARCH; inflation targeting
