Analysis of the dynamics of Mexican inflation using wavelets

This paper studies the dynamics of Mexican inflation by using a wavelet multiresolution analysis on 16 indexes of the Mexican Consumer Price Index. This enables us to estimate the long-term trend, seasonality, and local shocks of the inflation series, even when the series are non-stationary. The energy distribution between the high frequency, seasonal, and trend components, as well as its evolution through time, are compared. In particular, headline and core inflations show a more stable behavior in all the scales since 2001. Also, an increase in the proportion of variance explained by short-term variations is detected in the inflation series. In relative terms, the short run is becoming as important for headline inflation as the medium and long run, and more important for non-core inflation. These results are in line with previous studies documenting the reduction in the Mexican inflation persistence.