IMF | STI

Details

Start: 
March 3, 2025

End:
March 14, 2025

Course Number:
ST25.06

Application Deadline

December 9, 2024

Blended: Model-Based Monetary Policy Analysis and Forecasting (MPAF)

Mar 3 - 14

Target Audience

Mid-level to senior officials responsible for monetary policy decision making and staff doing macroeconomic analysis and forecasting or operating macroeconomic models.

Qualifications

Participants are expected to have an advanced degree in economics or equivalent experience. It is strongly recommended that applicants have completed the Monetary Policy (MP) course or the online Monetary Policy Analysis and Forecasting (MPAFx) course. Participants are expected to be comfortable using quantitative software such as EViews and Matlab/Octave, although specific knowledge of these is not required.

Blended Course Requirements

The course will run in a blended format, consisting of two compulsory parts. Selected participants will first complete on their own time three short online learning segments during February 14 – February 25, 2024. Only those who complete all online learning activities will be invited to the second, in-person, portion of the course during March 18 – March 29, 2024.

Course Description

This course, presented by the Institute for Capacity Development, provides rigorous training on the use of simple Dynamic New Keynesian (DNK) models to conduct monetary policy analysis and forecasting. It emphasizes analysis of monetary policy responses to macroeconomic imbalances and shocks. Participants are provided with the tools necessary to develop or extend the canonical model to fit their own monetary policy framework and selected features of their country’s economy. Country case studies are used to reinforce participant understanding and to help them compare and assess a variety of possible experiences.

Course Objectives

Upon completion of this course, participants should be able to:

• Customize a simple model of an economy that embodies the monetary policy transmission mechanism, and the shocks this economy may face.
• Acquire and apply tools used in modern central banks to conduct monetary policy analysis and forecasting using the small semi-structural model.
• Conduct nowcasting and near-term forecasting using estimation-based econometric techniques supported by expert judgment.
• Use the small semi-structural model to develop consistent medium-term quarterly projections of key macro variables e.g. output, inflation, interest rate, and exchange rate.
• Identify risks in the baseline forecast and draw up medium-term projections for alternative scenarios that assume that the risks materialize.
• Start building a simple model for monetary policy analysis using their own national data when they return home.