A Robust Measure of Core Inflation in Saudi Arabia: Empirically Investigating the Trimmed Mean and the Median CPI

The headline inflation in Saudi Arabia is subject to dramatic changes caused by new policies as the economy is undergoing structural changes since 2016. These changes could mislead policymakers as the underlying inflation may differ from the headline one. Since the announcement of Saudi Vision 2030 in April 2016, the Saudi economy entered a new era where the government has started to reform the economy to reduce its dependence on oil. As a result, many initiatives have been implemented with different impacts on the headline inflation such as imposing new taxes and expat levies and reforming energy prices. This research aims to calculate the core inflation in Saudi Arabia using two different methods: Trimmed Mean, and Median CPI. These two different methods were assessed based on their ability to track trends in the headline inflation over time as measured by the root mean square error and it ability to predict the future headline inflation.

International Measures of Common Inflation

A key challenge for monetary policymakers in achieving their inflation goals—particularly important at the current juncture—is to be able to distinguish between persistent inflationary changes and short-term idiosyncratic shocks. The most common approach for filtering out short-term price shocks from inflation is to focus on measures of "core" inflation, traditionally defined as the change in the consumer price index (CPI) excluding food and energy prices.

Monetary Policy Report - July de 2021

Macroeconomic summary The Colombian economy sustained numerous shocks in the second quarter, pri¬marily related to costs and supply. The majority of these shocks were unantic¬ipated or proved more persistent than expected, interrupting the recovery in economic activity observed at the beginning of the year and pushing overall inflation above the target. Core inflation (excluding food and regulated items) increased but remained low, in line with the technical staff’s expectations. A third wave of the pandemic, which became more severe and prolonged than the previous outbreak, began in early April. This had both a high cost in terms of human life and a negative impact on Colombia's economic recovery. Between May and mid-June roadblocks and other disruptions to public order had a sig¬nificant negative effect on economic activity and inflation. The combination and magnitude of these two shocks likely led to a decline in gross domestic product (GDP) compared to the first quarter. Roadblocks also led to a significant in¬crease in food prices. The accumulated effects of global disruptions to certain value chains and increased international freight transportation prices, which since the end of 2020 have restricted supply and increased costs, also affected Colombia’s economy. The factors described above, which primarily affected the consumer price index (CPI) for goods and foods, explain to a significant degree the technical staff’s forecast errors and the increase in overall inflation above the 3% target. By contrast, increases in core inflation and in prices for regulated items were in line with the technical staff’s expectations, and can be explained largely by the elimination of various price relief measures put in place last year. An increase in perceived sovereign risk and the upward pressures that this im¬plies on international financing costs and the exchange rate were further con¬siderations. Despite significant negative shocks, economic growth in the first half of the year (9.1%) is now expected to be significantly higher than projected in the April re¬port (7.1%), a sign of a more dynamic economy that could recover more quickly than previously forecast. Diverse economic activity figures have indicated high¬er-than-expected growth since the end of 2020. This suggests that the negative effects on output from recurring waves of COVID-19 have grown weaker and less long-lasting with subsequent outbreaks. Nevertheless, the third wave of the coro¬navirus, and to an even greater degree the previously mentioned roadblocks and disruptions to public order, likely led to a decline in GDP in the second quar¬ter compared to the first. Despite this, data from the monthly economic tracking indicator (ISE) for April and May surpassed expectations, and new sector-level measures of economic activity suggest that the negative impact of the pandemic on output continues to moderate, amid reduced restrictions on mobility and im¬provements in the pace of vaccination programs. Freight transportation registers (June) and unregulated energy demand (July), among other indicators, suggest a significant recovery following the roadblocks in May. Given the above, annual GDP growth in the second quarter is expected to have been around 17.3% (previously 15.8%), explained in large part by a low basis of comparison. The technical staff revised its growth projection for 2021 upward from 6% to 7.5%. This forecast, which comes with an unusually high degree of uncertain¬ty, assumes no additional disruptions to public order and that any new waves of COVID-19 will not have significant additional negative effects on economic activity. Recovery in international demand, price levels for some of Colombia’s export com¬modities, and remittances from workers abroad have all performed better than projected in the previous report. This dynamic is expected to continue to drive recovery in the national income over the rest of the year. Continued ample international liquidity, an acceleration in vacci¬nation programs, and low interest rates can also be ex¬pected to favor economic activity. Improved performance in the second quarter, which led to an upward growth revision for all components of spending, is expected to continue, with the economy returning to 2019 production levels at the end of 2021, earlier than estimated in the April report. This forecast continues to account for the short-term effects on aggregate demand of a tax reform package along the lines of what is currently being pro-posed by the national government. Given the above, the central forecast scenario in this report projects growth in 2021 of 7.5% and in 2022 of 3.1% (Graph 1.1). In this scenar¬io, economic activity would nonetheless remain below potential. The noted improvement in these projections comes with a high degree of uncertainty. Annual inflation increased more than expected in June (3.63%) as a result of changes in food prices, while growth in core inflation (1.87%) was similar to projections.

PERKEMBANGAN EKONOMI, INFLASI, DAN STABILITAS SISTEM KEUANGAN PROVINSI JAWA TIMUR SEMESTER I – 2018

Perekonomian Jawa Timur pada semester I 2018 sedikit melambat dibandingkan semester sebelumnya, namun diiringi dengan rendahnya tekanan inflasi Indeks Harga Konsumen (IHK) dan stabilnya sistem keuangan daerah. Perlambatan pertumbuhan ekonomi Jawa Timur terutama disebabkan oleh belum kuatnya kinerja ekspor luar negeri. Dari sisi perkembangan inflasi, rendahnya inflasi disebabkan oleh penurunan inflasi kelompok administered price dan core inflation dibandingkan paruh kedua 2017 seiring dengan hilangnya base effect kenaikan tarif dasar listrik di tahun 2017. Lebih lanjut, terjaganya stabilitas keuangan daerah tercermin dari masih positifnya pertumbuhan kredit, terjaganya rasio Non Performing Loan (NPL) di kisaran 3%, serta masih kuatnya kinerja sektor korporasi dan sektor Rumah Tangga di Jawa Timur. Pada semester II 2018, kinerja ekonomi Jawa Timur diperkirakan tetap tumbuh tinggi seiring dengan perkiraan peningkatan konsumsi swasta dan kinerja net ekspor antar daerah sebagai dampak adanya momen Natal dan Tahun Baru. Inflasi IHK Jawa Timur pada semester II 2018 diperkirakan sedikit meningkat dibandingkan pencapaian pada paruh pertama 2018, dengan peningkatan bersumber dari kelompok volatile food dan core inflation. Meskipun meningkat, namun inflasi Jawa Timur diperkirakan tetap dalam batas sasaran inflasi 3,5%+1% seiring dengan terjaganya pasokan dan intensifnya upaya pengendalian inflasi. Dari sisi stabilitas keuangan daerah dan kinerja perbankan Jawa Timur, kinerja pada semester II 2018 diperkirakan tetap baik dengan risiko kredit dan risiko likuiditas yang tetap terjaga.

Some Considerations on the Issue of Economic and Social Sustainability

To be implemented and analyzed, according to the good rules of relationship with nature, sustainability must be equipped with a theoretical scheme able of helping to understand the dynamics of this relationship together with the opportunities offered to improve the development of the economic system. Essentially, it’s about acknowledging that, just like physics, also the economy is subject to some general and abstract laws. This is the case of the core inflation value, defined by Central Banks as a value close to 2%. So, if the economy moves along the track indicated by this value, we have confirmation that growth is regularly developing. This core inflation value is implicitly defined without a clear specification. We can therefore admit that it’s an ideal value like the great universal constants, which reports about an economic system that develops according to the rules of natural compatibility. According to this point of view, the core inflation close to 2% is essentially a utopia, because it can only be achieved if the global economic growth moves in full accordance with the nature around us. It follows that even if we can verify on field the realization of a base value close to 2%, actually we are not in the best conditions, especially if the global economy is suffering from deflation as today. The deflation, that is the tendency of prices to fall, is part of the complex messages sent by the nature and economic systems to signal that the economy is not doing well and has become unstable. Both inflation and deflation are messages that never contribute to the economic development course, but they are born and evolving in parallel with the appearance of the economic cycle in daily activity. In summary, a mechanism that has the responsibility, by imposing pauses on the system, to reduce the instability of the systems and to facilitate the return to the natural development condition. A correction system based on the economic conjuncture that obviously distinguishes the stability by the way that the economy grows and develops in a linear and constant inclination depending on differentials.

Asymmetric Impact of Oil Price on Inflation in Nigeria

This study examines the impact of oil price shocks on inflation in Nigeria. A NonLinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) approach was applied on quarterly data spanning 1999Q1 to 2018Q4. Results showed that oil price increases led to increase in headline, core and food measures of inflation in Nigeria. However, a decline in oil price resulted in a decline in the marginal cost of production and culminated in moderation of domestic inflation. Furthermore, negative oil price shocks led to higher inflation in Nigeria when exchange rate is dropped from the models, indicating that exchange rate absorbed the impact of oil price declines earlier, as lower oil prices culminated in lower external reserve, depreciation of the naira and ultimately higher inflationary pressures. Also, core inflation tends to respond more to oil price increases than food inflation. These results were robust to changes in econometric specifications and sample period. The study recommends that monetary policy actions of the Central Bank of Nigeria should focus on taming core inflation in periods of substantial oil price increases while strengthening its efforts at ensuring domestic sustainability in food production through its agricultural intervention programmes to further minimize the impact of international oil prices on food inflation. Similarly, the fiscal authorities should ensure that the fiscal stance is not excessively procyclical in periods of rising oil prices.

PERFORMANCE OF CHINA’S CORE INFLATION MEASURES FOR MONETARY POLICY

In this paper, China’s core inflation is defined as any price changes that are caused by the money supply. This definition is especially relevant to examining monetary policy because the money supply is controllable by China’s central bank. This paper develops a New Keynesian DSGE model with a quantity-based monetary rule that fits real aggregated data from China to analyze core inflation’s key characteristics. Eight different approaches are used to estimate core inflation in China. By constructing VAR models of output growth, money supply growth and core inflation, we estimate the response of core inflation measures to the money supply shock. By matching the response to money supply shocks in both the model and the data, we compare the performance of different core inflation measures for monetary policy in China.