What explains persistent inflation differentials across transition economies?

We document that a persistent inflation differential has opened across different groups of transition economies since 2001, with the CIS-West seeing particularly high outcomes. We consider a range of non-monetary explanations discussed in the literature (economic structure, policy and institutions), and controlling for economic shocks, we find a role for political stability, as emphasized in previous cross-country work. However, our results suggest that lagging internal and external liberalization have been the key disincentives to disinflation. Consequently, lower inflation targets would not be credible in the absence of stronger structural and monetary policy frameworks. Copyright (c) 2009 International Monetary Fund. Journal compilation (c) 2009 The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.