Core inflation in the Euro area : evidence from the structural VAR approach

Against the difficult background of analysing aggregated data in this paper core inflation in the euro area is estimated by means of the structural vector autoregressive approach. We demonstrate that the HICP sometimes seems to be a misleading indicator for monetary policy in the euro area. We furthermore compare our core inflation measure to the wide-spread "ex food and energy" measure, often referred to by the ECB. In addition we provide evidence that our measure is a coincident indicator of HICP inflation. Assessing the robustness of our core inflation measure we carefully conclude that it seems to be quite reliable.