Abstract
Emerging economies are largely influenced by their vulnerability to domestic and external shocks with the effect on economic prosperity usually more pronounced when driven by volatile factors. Given country specifics, macroeconomists in emerging economies implement policies to alleviate the impact of these disturbances on the economy, considering the ensuing implications of supply side constraints that may hamper the transmission and efficacy of monetary policy initiatives. This task is however compounded when the economy is highly dependent on resource exports. Therefore, central banks in such jurisdictions require comprehensive and reliable tools to conduct monetary policy. In view of the foregoing, this thesis makes distinct contributions building on existing research on monetary policy rules in resource-rich emerging economies developing a non-zero growth and inflation two-bloc open economy Smets-Wouters type Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model suitable for optimal policy analysis. The DSGE model incorporates liquidity-constrained consumers, incomplete exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) to import and export prices as well as Oil revenue for a nonindustrial Oil-producer economy. Undertaking optimal monetary policy simulations, we propose alternative monetary policy rules for the effective management of competing and sometimes conflicting macroeconomic policy objectives in resource-rich emerging economies. Following the thesis introduction, the second chapter assesses from a general perspective a common challenge confronted by central banks in the conduct of monetary policy. Estimating Taylor-type monetary policy rules a test of robustness is undertaken by applying different measures of potential output to highlight signal extraction issues faced by policy makers when considering business cycle dynamics. This is important when there are considerable data challenges and issues of identification and indeterminacy. The DSGE model developed to fit the dynamics of an oil-producer emerging economy is presented in the third chapter following which we carry out optimal monetary policy simulations in the fourth chapter.