The Open Economics Journal

2009, 2 : 1-9
Published online 2009 January 21. DOI: 10.2174/1874919400902010001
Publisher ID: TOECONSJ-2-1

Empirical Analysis of Monetary Transmission in Tunisia: What do SVAR Models Tell Us?

Samuel Bates and Ahmed Hachicha
SDFi Universite Paris-Dauphine, Place Maréchal De Lattre de Tassigny, 75016 Paris, France.

ABSTRACT

Monetary policy contributes to stabilize growth. Particularly in a reforming context for financial and economic activities, it is important to know how central bankers’ decisions through the short term interest rate of the money market are transmitted to the real variables: the GDP and the inflation. Few studies on monetary transmission mechanisms deal with the Maghreb countries. Structural VAR are used to investigate the importance of various monetary transmission channels at a macro scale from convenient impulse response functions. As a result, the Tunisian central bank should mainly target inflation, focussing the interest rate channel and the long-term interest rate as the principal transmission variable.

Keywords:

Impulse responses function, inflation, output, transmission channels, SVAR modelling.