Relative Prices, Inflation and Core Inflation

Relative Prices, Inflation and Core Inflation PDF Author: Scott Roger
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 50

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Book Description
Central banks concerned with inflation performance almost invariably seek to distinguish between a generalized or persistent component of the measured aggregate rate of inflation-driven by demand pressures and expectations-and supply-driven, essentially transitory inflation developments associated with movements in relative prices. The more generalized, persistent element - usually described as core or underlying inflation - is regarded as a legitimate monetary policy concern, while the influence of specific relative price developments are generally regarded as transient distortions that should be largely ignored in forward-looking policy setting, as well as in backward-looking assessment of policy performance.

Relative Prices, Inflation and Core Inflation

Relative Prices, Inflation and Core Inflation PDF Author: Scott Roger
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 50

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Book Description
Central banks concerned with inflation performance almost invariably seek to distinguish between a generalized or persistent component of the measured aggregate rate of inflation-driven by demand pressures and expectations-and supply-driven, essentially transitory inflation developments associated with movements in relative prices. The more generalized, persistent element - usually described as core or underlying inflation - is regarded as a legitimate monetary policy concern, while the influence of specific relative price developments are generally regarded as transient distortions that should be largely ignored in forward-looking policy setting, as well as in backward-looking assessment of policy performance.

Identifying Domestic and Imported Core Inflation

Identifying Domestic and Imported Core Inflation PDF Author: Hilde C. Bjørnland
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1451842031
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
This paper estimates core inflation in Norway, identified as that component of inflation that has no long-run effect on GDP. The model distinguishes explicitly between domestic and imported core inflation. The results show that (domestic) core inflation is the main component of CPI inflation. CPI inflation, however, misrepresents core inflation in some periods. The differences are well explained by the other shocks identified in the model, in particular the oil price shocks of the 1970s when Norway imported inflation, and the negative noncore (supply) shocks of the late 1980s, which pushed inflation up temporarily relative to core inflation.

Price Level Convergence, Relative Prices, and Inflation in Europe

Price Level Convergence, Relative Prices, and Inflation in Europe PDF Author: John H. Rogers
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Convergence (Economics)
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
"If price levels are initially different across the euro area, convergence to a common level of prices would imply that inflation will be higher in countries where prices are initially low. Price level convergence thus provides a potential explanation for recent cross-country differences in European inflation, a worrisome development under the ECBs "one-size-fits-all" monetary policy. I present direct evidence on price level convergence in Europe, using a unique data set, and then investigate how much of the recent divergence of national inflation rates can be explained by price level convergence. I show that between 1990 and 1999 prices did become less dispersed in the euro area. Convergence is especially evident for traded goods, and more in the first half of the 1990s than the second half. By some measures, traded goods price dispersion across the euro area is now close to that across U.S. cities. Despite an on-going process of convergence, deviations from the law of one price are large. Finally, I find a statistically-significant and robust negative relationship between the 1999 price level and 2000 inflation rate in Europe, and that the contribution of price level convergence to explaining inflation differentials is often quite important economically. Still, factors other than price convergence explain most of the cross-country inflation differences."

U.K. Inflation and Relative Prices Over the Last Decade

U.K. Inflation and Relative Prices Over the Last Decade PDF Author: Ben Hunt
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 34

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Book Description
In this paper, the IMF's new Global Economy Model (GEM) is used to estimate the relative importance of a number of factors argued to explain the differences in the trends in core inflation and relative prices in the United Kingdom, the Euro Area and the United States. The simulation results indicate that while the direct effect of globalization has had a larger effect in the United Kingdom than in either the United States or the Euro Area, it explains only a portion of the developments and U.K. specific factors played an important role.

What is Keeping U.S. Core Inflation Low

What is Keeping U.S. Core Inflation Low PDF Author: Mr.Yasser Abdih
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1475533772
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 38

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Book Description
Over the past two decades, U.S. core PCE goods and services inflation have evolved differently. Against the backdrop of global concerns of low inflation, we use this trend as motivation to develop a bottom-up model of U.S. inflation. We find that domestic forces play a larger role relative to foreign factors in influencing core services inflation, while foreign factors predominantly drive core goods price changes. When comparing forecasting performance, we find that both the aggregate Phillips curve and the bottom up approach give low root mean square errors. The latter, however, is more informative in tracing the effects of shocks and understanding the exact channels through which they affect aggregate inflation. Using scenario analysis—and given a relatively low sensitivity of core inflation to changes in slack, both at the aggregate Phillips curve and sub-components levels—we find that global pressures will likely keep core PCE inflation below 2 percent for the foreseeable future unless the dollar starts to depreciate markedly and the unemployment rate goes well below the natural rate. These results support the accommodative stance of monetary policy pursued thus far and, going forward, underscore the need for proceeding cautiously and very gradually in raising the federal funds rate.

Inflation Expectations

Inflation Expectations PDF Author: Peter J. N. Sinclair
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135179778
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
Inflation is regarded by the many as a menace that damages business and can only make life worse for households. Keeping it low depends critically on ensuring that firms and workers expect it to be low. So expectations of inflation are a key influence on national economic welfare. This collection pulls together a galaxy of world experts (including Roy Batchelor, Richard Curtin and Staffan Linden) on inflation expectations to debate different aspects of the issues involved. The main focus of the volume is on likely inflation developments. A number of factors have led practitioners and academic observers of monetary policy to place increasing emphasis recently on inflation expectations. One is the spread of inflation targeting, invented in New Zealand over 15 years ago, but now encompassing many important economies including Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain. Even more significantly, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the United States Federal Bank are the leading members of another group of monetary institutions all considering or implementing moves in the same direction. A second is the large reduction in actual inflation that has been observed in most countries over the past decade or so. These considerations underscore the critical – and largely underrecognized - importance of inflation expectations. They emphasize the importance of the issues, and the great need for a volume that offers a clear, systematic treatment of them. This book, under the steely editorship of Peter Sinclair, should prove very important for policy makers and monetary economists alike.

Inflation, Stagflation, Relative Prices, and Imperfect Information

Inflation, Stagflation, Relative Prices, and Imperfect Information PDF Author: Alex Cukierman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521256305
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Professor Cukierman presents a summary view of the recent imperfect information approach to inflation and its real effects, focusing in particular on two types of informational limitations. The first involves situations in which individuals have asymmetric information about the current general price level and consequently confuse relative and aggregate changes in prices. The second considers models in which individuals cannot distinguish permanent from transitory changes in the economic environment. The book assumes no mathematical training beyond standard calculus and elementary statistics.

Economic Policy and the Great Stagflation

Economic Policy and the Great Stagflation PDF Author: Alan S. Blinder
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 1483264564
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Economic Policy and the Great Stagflation discusses the national economic policy and economics as a policy-oriented science. This book summarizes what economists do and do not know about the inflation and recession that affected the U.S. economy during the years of the Great Stagflation in the mid-1970s. The topics discussed include the basic concepts of stagflation, turbulent economic history of 1971-1976, anatomy of the great recession and inflation, and legacy of the Great Stagflation. The relation of wage-price controls, fiscal policy, and monetary policy to the Great Stagflation is also elaborated. This publication is beneficial to economists and students researching on the history of the Great Stagflation and policy errors of the 1970s.

The Great Inflation

The Great Inflation PDF Author: Michael D. Bordo
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226066959
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 545

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Book Description
Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity. This volume focuses on understanding the causes of the Great Inflation of the 1970s and ’80s, which saw rising inflation in many nations, and which propelled interest rates across the developing world into the double digits. In the decades since, the immediate cause of the period’s rise in inflation has been the subject of considerable debate. Among the areas of contention are the role of monetary policy in driving inflation and the implications this had both for policy design and for evaluating the performance of those who set the policy. Here, contributors map monetary policy from the 1960s to the present, shedding light on the ways in which the lessons of the Great Inflation were absorbed and applied to today’s global and increasingly complex economic environment.

A Volatility and Persistence-Based Core Inflation

A Volatility and Persistence-Based Core Inflation PDF Author: Tito Nícias Teixeira da Silva Filho
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484387813
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 19

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Book Description
Intuitively core inflation is understood as a measure of inflation where noisy price movements are avoided. This is typically achieved by either excluding or downplaying the importance of the most volatile items. However, some of those items show high persistence, and one certainly does not want to disregard persistent price changes. The non-equivalence between volatility and (the lack of) persistence implies that when one excludes volatile items relevant information is likely to be discarded. Therefore, we propose a new type of core inflation measure, one that takes simultaneously into account both volatility and persistence. The evidence shows that such measures far outperform those based on either volatility or persistence. The latter have been advocated in the literature in recent years.