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A First Assessment of Some Measures of Core Inflation for the Euro Area

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Author Info
Juan-Luis Vega
Mark A. Wynne

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Abstract

Core inflation plays an important role in the deliberations of monetary policy-makers. In this paper we evaluate a number of measures of core inflation constructed using euro-area data. In addition to the traditional exclusion-type core measures, we examine two newer ones, documenting their properties and evaluating their performance in terms of their ability to track underlying or trend inflation in real time. We focus on core measures derived from the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) as the European Central Bank has chosen to define its mandate for price stability in terms of this index, and because this is the only index of consumer prices that is compiled in a comparable manner across all members of the European Union. We document significant excess kurtosis in the cross-section distribution of price changes in the euro area, and show that several categories of prices are more volatile than those typically excluded from traditional measures of core inflation. Contrary to what one might expect, traditional measures of core inflation are not significantly less volatile than headline measures. We document the superior performance of alternative measures of core inflation in tracking trend inflation on average, but show that none of the various measures of core gave significant advance warning of the pickup in trend inflation at the beginning of 1999. Copyright Verein für Socialpolitik and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2003.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Blackwell Publishing in its journal German Economic Review.

Volume (Year): 4 (2003)
Issue (Month): (08)
Pages: 269-306
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Handle: RePEc:bla:germec:v:4:y:2003:i::p:269-306

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Shiratsuka, Shigenori, 1997. "Inflation Measures for Monetary Policy: Measuring the Underlying Inflation Trend and Its Implication for Monetary Policy Implementation," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 15(2), pages 1-26, December. [Downloadable!]
  2. Aucremanne, L., 2000. "The Use of Robust Estimators as Measures of Core Inflation," Papers 2, Warwick - Development Economics Research Centre.
  3. Luc Aucremanne, 2000. "The use of robust estimators as measures of core inflation," Research series 200003-2, National Bank of Belgium. [Downloadable!]
  4. Meyler, Aidan, 1999. "A statistical measure of core inflation," MPRA Paper 11362, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Michael F. Bryan & Stephen G. Cecchetti & Rodney L. Wiggins II, 1997. "Efficient Inflation Estimation," NBER Working Papers 6183, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Luis J. Álvarez & María de los Llanos Matea, 1999. "Underlying Inflation Measures in Spain," Banco de España Working Papers 9911, Banco de España. [Downloadable!]
  7. Robalo Marques, Carlos & Duarte Neves, Pedro & Morais Sarmento, Luis, 2003. "Evaluating core inflation indicators," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 765-775, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Quah, Danny & Vahey, Shaun P, 1995. "Measuring Core Inflation?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(432), pages 1130-44, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Marianne Baxter & Robert G. King, 1999. "Measuring Business Cycles: Approximate Band-Pass Filters For Economic Time Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 575-593, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Timothy Cogley, 1998. "A simple adaptive measure of core inflation," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory and Econometrics 98-06, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
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  11. Ball, Laurence & Mankiw, N Gregory, 1995. "Relative-Price Changes as Aggregate Supply Shocks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 110(1), pages 161-93, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Luis J. Álvarez & María de los Llanos Matea, 1999. "Underlying Inflation Measures in Spain," Banco de España Working Papers 9911, Banco de España. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  13. Diewert, W.E., 1995. "On the Stochastic Approach to Index Numbers," UBC Departmental Archives 95-31, UBC Department of Economics.
  14. Michael F. Bryan & Christopher J. Pike, 1991. "Median price changes: an alternative approach to measuring current monetary inflation," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Dec 1. [Downloadable!]
  15. Stephen G. Cecchetti, 1997. "Measuring short-run inflation for central bankers," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue May, pages 143-155. [Downloadable!]
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  16. Hasan Bakhshi & Tony Yates, . "To trim or not to trim? An application of a trimmmed mean inflation estimator to the United Kingdom," Bank of England working papers 97, Bank of England. [Downloadable!]
  17. Jonathan Kearns, 1998. "The Distribution and Measurement of Inflation," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp9810, Reserve Bank of Australia. [Downloadable!]
  18. Balke, Nathan S. & Wynne, Mark A., 2000. "An equilibrium analysis of relative price changes and aggregate inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 269-292, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Vining, Daniel R, Jr & Elwertowski, Thomas C, 1976. "The Relationship between Relative Prices and the General Price Level," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(4), pages 699-708, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Juan Luis Vega-Croissier & Mark A. Wynne, 2001. "An evaluation of some measures of core inflation for the euro area," Working Paper Series 053, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  21. Freeman, Donald G., 1998. "Do core inflation measures help forecast inflation?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 143-147, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Mick Silver, 2006. "Core Inflation Measures and Statistical Issues in Choosing Among Them," IMF Working Papers 06/97, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
  2. Jamie Armour, 2006. "An Evaluation of Core Inflation Measures," Working Papers 06-10, Bank of Canada. [Downloadable!]
  3. Felipe Córdova & María Carolina Grünwald & Michael Pedersen, 2008. "Alternative Measures of Core Inflation in Chile," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 471, Central Bank of Chile. [Downloadable!]
  4. Maria Arrazola & Jose de Hevia, 2008. "A simple inflation indicator for the euro zone," Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 40(18), pages 2387-2394. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Michael Pedersen, 2006. "An Alternative Measure of Core Inflation," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 366, Central Bank of Chile. [Downloadable!]
  6. Ivan Roberts, 2005. "Underlying Inflation: Concepts, Measurement and Performance," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2005-05, Reserve Bank of Australia. [Downloadable!]
  7. Moons C. & Garretsen H. & Van Aarle B. & Fornero J., 2007. "Monetary policy in the New-Keynesian model: An application to the Euro-Area," Working Papers 2007014, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Applied Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Nicholas Apergis & Stephen M. Miller & Alexandros Panethimitakis & Athanassios Vamvakidis, 2005. "Inflation Targeting and Output Growth: Evidence from Aggregate European Data," Working papers 2005-06, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  9. Emil Stavrev, 2006. "Measures of Underlying Inflation in the Euro Area: Assessment and Role for Informing Monetary Policy," IMF Working Papers 06/197, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
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