In the recent past, several attempts by the RBI to control inflation through
tight monetary policy have ended up slowing the growth process, thereby
provoking prolonged discussion among academics and policymakers about the
efficacy of monetary policy in India. Against this backdrop, the present
study attempts to estimate the causal relationship between monetary policy
and its final objectives; i.e., growth, and controlling inflation in India.
The methodological tool used is testing for Granger Causality in the
frequency domain as developed by Lemmens et al. (2008), and monetary policy
has been proxied by the weighted average call money rate. In view of the
fact that output gap is one of the determinants of future inflation, an
attempt has also been made to study the causal relationship between output
gap and inflation. The results of empirical estimation show a bi-directional
causality between policy rate and inflation and between policy rate and
output, which implies that the monetary authorities in India were equally
concerned about inflation and output growth when determining policy.
Furthermore, any attempt to control inflation affects output with the same
or even greater magnitude than inflation, thereby damaging the growth
process. The relationship between output gap and inflation was found to be
positive, as reported in earlier studies for India. Furthermore, the output
gap causes inflation only in the short-tomediumrun.