IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mad/wpaper/2015-099.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inflation Forecasting and the Distribution of Price Changes

Author

Listed:
  • Sartaj Rasool Rather

    (Madras School of Economics)

  • Sunil Paul

    (Madras School of Economics)

  • S. Raja Sethu Durai

    (Madras School of Economics)

Abstract

This study shows that replacing the traditional measure of asymmetry that is skewness in the inflation forecasting model with an alternative asymmetry measure that captures the joint influence of both skewness and variance on inflation significantly improves the forecast at various horizons. The empirical evidence suggests that it is more appropriate to use such measure of asymmetry in inflation forecast model as it has edge over simple measure of skewness in predicting inflation. These findings are consistent with the prediction of menu cost model that the variance of cross sectional distribution of relative price changes amplifies the impact of skewness on inflation.

Suggested Citation

  • Sartaj Rasool Rather & Sunil Paul & S. Raja Sethu Durai, 2015. "Inflation Forecasting and the Distribution of Price Changes," Working Papers 2015-099, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.
    • Handle: RePEc:mad:wpaper:2015-099
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mse.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Working-Paper-99-for-Web.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hercowitz, Zvi, 1981. "Money and the Dispersion of Relative Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(2), pages 328-356, April.
    2. 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.
    3. Sartaj Rasool Rather & S. Raja Sethu Durai & M. Ramachandran, 2014. "Does inflation asymmetrically affect relative price variability?," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 80-83, January.
    4. Jane Binner & Thomas Elger & Barry Jones & Birger Nilsson, 2010. "Inflation forecasting, relative price variability and skewness," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(6), pages 593-596.
    5. Chi‐Young Choi, 2010. "Reconsidering the Relationship between Inflation and Relative Price Variability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(5), pages 769-798, August.
    6. Robert Amano & Tiff Macklem, 1997. "Menu Costs, Relative Prices, and Inflation: Evidence for Canada," Staff Working Papers 97-14, Bank of Canada.
    7. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1973. "Some International Evidence on Output-Inflation Tradeoffs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 326-334, June.
    8. Rather, Sartaj Rasool & Durai, S. Raja Sethu & Ramachandran, M., 2014. "Inflation and relative price variability: Evidence for India," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 32-41.
    9. Laurence Ball & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1995. "Relative-Price Changes as Aggregate Supply Shocks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 161-193.
    10. Parks, Richard W, 1978. "Inflation and Relative Price Variability," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(1), pages 79-95, February.
    11. Debelle, Guy & Lamont, Owen, 1997. "Relative Price Variability and Inflation: Evidence from U.S. Cities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 132-152, February.
    12. Cukierman, Alex, 1983. "Relative price variability and inflation: A survey and further results," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 103-157, January.
    13. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    14. Dieter Nautz & Juliane Scharff, 2012. "Inflation and relative price variability in the euro area: evidence from a panel threshold model," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(4), pages 449-460, February.
    15. Stanley Fischer, 1981. "Relative Shocks, Relative Price Variability, and Inflation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 12(2), pages 381-442.
    16. Hiranya Nath, 2004. "Relative importance of sectoral and aggregate sources of price changes," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(16), pages 1781-1796.
    17. Caraballo Pou, M. Angeles & Dabus, Carlos, 2008. "Nominal rigidities, skewness and inflation regimes," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 16-33, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sartaj Rasool Rather, 2019. "Asymmetric impact of relative price shocks in presence of trend inflation," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(9), pages 755-758, May.
    2. Sartaj Rather, 2016. "Asymmetric Impact of Relative Price Shocks in Presence of Trend Inflation," Working Papers id:11477, eSocialSciences.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rather, Sartaj Rasool & Durai, S. Raja Sethu & Ramachandran, M., 2014. "Inflation and relative price variability: Evidence for India," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 32-41.
    2. Sartaj Rasool Rather & Raja Sethu Durai & Muthia Ramachandran, 2018. "Inflation and the Dispersion of Relative Prices: A Case for 4 % Solution," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 81-91, March.
    3. Hiranya K. Nath & Jayanta Sarkar, 2019. "Inflation and relative price variability: new evidence from survey-based measures of inflation expectations in Australia," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(6), pages 2001-2024, June.
    4. María Ángeles Caraballo & Carlos Dabús., 2008. "The Determinants of Relative Price Variability: Further Evidence from Argentina," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 45(132), pages 235-255.
    5. Michael Aarstol, 1999. "Inflation, Inflation Uncertainty, and Relative Price Variability," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 66(2), pages 414-423, October.
    6. Nebiye Yamak & Sinem Kocak & Fatma Kolcu, 2016. "Causal Relationship Between Relative Price Variability and Inflation in Turkey: Evidence from Panel Data," Romanian Economic Journal, Department of International Business and Economics from the Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest, vol. 19(61), pages 193-210, September.
    7. David Parsley Helen Popper, 2002. "Inflation And Price Dispersion In Equity Markets And In Goods And Services Markets," Macroeconomics 0211004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Jane M. Binner & C. Thomas Elger & Barry E. Jones & Birger Nilsson, 2006. "Forecasting Inflation: the Relevance of Higher Moments," Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 407, Society for Computational Economics.
    9. Monir Uddin Ahmed & Md. Moniruzzaman Muzib & Md. Mahedi Hasan, 2016. "Inflation, inflation uncertainty and relative price variability in Bangladesh," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 6(3), pages 389-427, December.
    10. Ma Caraballo & Tilemahos Efthimiadis, 2012. "Is 2 % the optimal inflation rate for the Euro Area?," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 235-243, September.
    11. A. Nazif Çatik & Christopher Martin & A. Özlem Onder, 2011. "Relative price variability and the Phillips Curve: evidence from Turkey," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 38(5), pages 546-561, September.
    12. Jane Binner & Thomas Elger & Barry Jones & Birger Nilsson, 2010. "Inflation forecasting, relative price variability and skewness," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(6), pages 593-596.
    13. Nebiye Yamak & Sinem Kocak & Fatma Kolcu, 2016. "Causal Relationship Between Relative Price Variability and Inflation in Turkey:Evidence from Panel Data," Romanian Economic Journal, Department of International Business and Economics from the Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest, vol. 19(60), pages 183-198, June.
    14. Roland Bénabou & Robert Gertner, 1993. "Search with Learning from Prices: Does Increased Inflationary Uncertainty Lead to Higher Markups?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 69-93.
    15. Biao Gu & Liying Fu & Kehuan Yu, 2023. "On the dynamic effects of the cross‐section distribution of sectoral price changes in China," International Studies of Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(4), pages 468-501, December.
    16. Banerjee, Anindya & Mizen, Paul & Russell, Bill, 2007. "Inflation, relative price variability and the markup: Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 82-100, January.
    17. Cleomar Gomes da Silva & Gilberto O. Boaretto, 2018. "Inflation and Relative Price Variability in Brazil: A Time-Varying Parameter Approach," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(4), pages 1947-1956.
    18. Saghir Pervaiz Ghauri & Rizwan Raheem Ahmed & Jolita Vveinhardt & Dalia Streimikiene, 2017. "Estimation of Relationship between Inflation and Relative Price Variability: Granger Causality and ARDL Modelling Approach," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 19(44), pages 249-249, February.
    19. Sartaj Rasool Rather & S. Raja Sethu Durai & M. Ramachandran, 2015. "Price Rigidity, Inflation and the Distribution of Relative Price Changes," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 4(2), pages 258-287, December.
    20. Hande Kucuk-Tuger & Burc Tuger, 2004. "Relative Price Variability : The Case of Turkey 1994-2002," Central Bank Review, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, vol. 4(2), pages 1-40.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    skewness; relative price changes; asymmetry; inflation forecasting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mad:wpaper:2015-099. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Geetha G (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mseacin.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.