it as the inflation target. The CNB places a lot of emphasis on transparency and communication; indeed, a recent study of more than 100 central banks found the CNB to be among the four most transparent ones. In 2012, inflation was expected to fall well below the target, leading the CNB to gradually reduce the level of its basic monetary policy instrument, the 2-week repo rate, until the zero lower bound (actually 0.05 percent) was reached in late 2012. In light of the threat of a further fall in inflation and possibly even of a protracted period of deflation, on 7 November 2013 the CNB declared an immediate commitment to weaken the exchange rate to the level of 27 Czech korunas per 1 euro (day-on-day weakening by about 5 percent) and to keep the exchange rate from getting stronger than this value until at least the end of 2014 (later on this was changed to the second half of 2016). The CNB thus decided to use the exchange rate as a supplementary tool to make sure that inflation returns to the 2 percent target level. Such a use of the exchange rate as tool within the regime of inflation targeting should not be confused with a fixed exchange-rate system or with a currency war. United States In a historic shift on 25 January 2012, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke set a 2% target inflation rate, bringing the Fed in line with many of the world's other major central banks. Until then, the Fed's policy committee, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), did not have an explicit inflation target but regularly announced a desired target range for inflation (usually between 1.7% and 2%) measured by the personal consumption expenditures price index. Prior to adoption of the target, some people argued that an inflation target would give the Fed too little flexibility to stabilise growth and/or employment in the event of an external economic shock. Another criticism was that an explicit target might turn central bankers into what Mervyn King, former Governor of the Bank of England, had in 1997 colorfully termed "inflation nutters"—that is, central bankers who concentrate on the inflation target to the detriment of stable growth, employment, and/or exchange rates. King went on to help design the Bank's inflation targeting policy, and asserts that the buffoonery has not actually happened, as did Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve