CPI Inflation (cpi + inflation)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Core Inflation and Monetary Policy

INTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 3 2001
Marianne Nessén
What are the implications of targeting different measures of inflation? We extend a basic theoretical framework of optimal monetary policy under inflation targeting (Svensson 1997) to include several components of CPI inflation, and analyse the implications of using different measures of inflation as the target variable , headline CPI inflation, core inflation, and CPI excluding interest rates. Our main results are the following. First, barring the interest rate component, temporary shocks to inflation do not affect optimal monetary policy under any regime. Second, indirect (second-round) effects of disturbances on target variables need to be accounted for properly. Simply excluding seemingly temporary disturbances from the reaction function risks leading to inappropriate policy responses. Third, it may be optimal to respond to changes in one measure of inflation even if the target is defined in terms of another. Fourth, the presence of the direct interest rate component in the CPI tends to push optimal monetary policy in an expansionary direction. The net effect, considering also the traditional channel, however, depends on the nature of the initial disturbance. [source]


Do Actions Speak Louder Than Words?

JOURNAL OF MONEY, CREDIT AND BANKING, Issue 7 2009
Household Expectations of Inflation Based on Micro Consumption Data
inflation expectations; Consumer Expenditure Survey; Michigan Survey of Consumers; Survey of Professional Forecasters; Euler equation Survey data on household expectations of inflation are routinely used in economic analysis, yet it is not clear how accurately households are able to articulate their expectations in survey interviews. We propose an alternative approach to recovering households' expectations of inflation from their consumption expenditures. We show that these expectations measures have predictive power for consumer price index (CPI) inflation. They are better predictors of CPI inflation than household survey responses and more highly correlated with professional inflation forecasts, except for highly educated consumers, consistent with the view that more educated consumers are better able to articulate their expectations. We also document that households' inflation expectations respond to inflation news, as measured by the unpredictable component of inflation predictions in the Survey of Professional Forecasters. The response to inflation news tends to increase with households' level of education, consistent with the existence of constraints on household's ability to process this information. [source]


Stabilising Properties of Discretionary Monetary Policies in a Small Open Economy,

THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 508 2006
Alfred V. Guender
This article sets out a simple New Keynesian open-economy model and shows that the conduct of discretionary monetary policy in an open economy differs substantially from the closed-economy framework. The article shows analytically that the existence of the direct exchange rate channel in the open economy Phillips Curve impairs the perfect stabilising property of monetary policy in the face of demand-side disturbances under domestic inflation targeting. If CPI inflation is instead the target, then the perfect stabilising property of monetary policy breaks down even in the absence of the direct exchange rate channel in the Phillips Curve. [source]