Is Monetary Policy in an Open Economy Fundamentally Different?

Openness requires optimal monetary policy to deviate from the canonical closed economy principle of domestic price stability, even if domestic prices are the only ones to be sticky. The paper reviews this argument using a simple partial equilibrium analysis in an economy that trades in final consumption goods. It then extends the standard open economy New Keynesian model to include imported inputs of production. Production openness strengthens even further the incentive for the policymaker to deviate from strict domestic price stability. With both consumption and production openness, variations in the world price of food and in the world price of imported oil act as exogenous cost-push factors.