Auge y caída de precios de commodities y su impacto sobre precios domésticos: Comparación internacional

This paper compares domestic food, energy and core inflation in a sample of 44 countries during the recent commodities price boom-and-bust cycle, and explains differences across countries. In particular, it explores the role of structural and cyclical factors in explaining cross-country differences. Structural factors are essential in explaining cross-country differences in food and energy inflation. Differences in both price levels and domestic price regulations are key and significant. About half of the difference between the increase in domestic food prices in Chile from 2007 to 2008, and the average food inflation for the whole sample of countries, was explained by these factors. Even though the unexplained component of food and energy inflation in Chile is positive and greater than that of other countries during the boom, actual core inflation was less than expected inflation using the model. This is evidence contrary to the de-anchoring of inflation expectations hypothesis.