The Hamilton method for estimating CPI bias is simple, intuitive, and has been widely adopted. We show that the method confiates CPI bias with variation in cost-of-living across income levels. Assuming a single price index across the income distribution is inconsistent with the downward sloping...

This paper considers the problem of aggregation in the case of large linear dynamic panels, where each micro unit is potentially related to all other micro units, and where micro innovations are allowed to be cross sectionally dependent. Following Pesaran (2003), an optimal aggregate function is...

This paper examines the causal effects of shifts in international food commodity prices on euro area inflation dynamics using a structural VAR model that is identified with an external instrument (i.e. a series of global harvest shocks). The results reveal that exogenous food commodity price...

Predictions of oil prices reaching $100 per barrel during the winter of 2021/22 have raised fears of persistently high inflation and rising inflation expectations for years to come. We show that these concerns have been overstated. A $100 oil scenario of the type discussed by many observers,...

Since the 1980s inflationary pressures seem to materialize overproportionately outside of the sectors of consumer goods and services. We combine the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices with indices for asset prices, such as stocks and real estate, as well as the costs of public goods to develop...

We study how precipitation has affected food consumer price inflation (CPI), using dynamic panel estimation of food CPI Phillips curves across countries for 34 OECD member and candidate economies from 1985 to 2010 augmented with climate variables. We allow for nonlinear effects of precipitation...

This paper studies exchange rate pass-through to food and energy consumer price inflation and its dependence on the inflation environment using cross-country panel estimation of Phillips curves. It considers a large panel of OECD member and candidate economies with quarterly data from 1994 to...

This paper studies the effects of country-specific energy prices on food consumer price inflation (CPI) within a cross-country Phillips curve framework. It considers a panel of 36 OECD member and candidate economies using quarterly data from the start of 1994 to the end of 2021. We find that...

The value-added tax is one of the most important tax revenue sources in many countries. However, it is sometimes considered unfair as it ultimately hits consumption, and poorer households spend a greater share of their income on consumption. But this depends on whether, and to what degree, the...

Inflation is the percentage change in the CPI over a given period of time. It is usually calculated over a year (year-on-year inflation) and over a month (month-to-month inflation). Even if prices are not currently rising from month to month, the year-to-year inflation rate could still be...