IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedcec/00102.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Behavior of a New Median PCE Measure: A Tale of Tails

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel R. Carroll
  • Randal J. Verbrugge

Abstract

We introduce two new measures of trend inflation, a median PCE inflation rate and a median PCE excluding OER inflation rate, and investigate their performance. Our analysis indicates that both perform comparably to other simple trend inflation estimators such as the trimmed-mean PCE. Furthermore, we find that the performance of the median PCE is related to skewness in the distribution of cross-sectional growth rates across categories in the PCE, and our results suggest that the Bowley skewness statistic may be useful in forecasting.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel R. Carroll & Randal J. Verbrugge, 2019. "Behavior of a New Median PCE Measure: A Tale of Tails," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 2019(10), July.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedcec:00102
    DOI: 10.26509/frbc-ec-201910
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-ec-201910
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.26509/frbc-ec-201910?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard Ashley & Randal J. Verbrugge, 2019. "The Intermittent Phillips Curve: Finding a Stable (But Persistence-Dependent) Phillips Curve Model Specification," Working Papers 19-09R2, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, revised 14 Feb 2023.
    2. Mick Silver, 2007. "Core Inflation: Measurement and Statistical Issues in Choosing Among Alternative Measures," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 54(1), pages 163-190, May.
    3. Jim Dolmas, 2005. "Trimmed mean PCE inflation," Working Papers 0506, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    4. Brent Meyer & Saeed Zaman, 2019. "The usefulness of the median CPI in Bayesian VARs used for macroeconomic forecasting and policy," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 603-630, August.
    5. Michael F. Bryan & Christopher J. Pike, 1991. "Median price changes: an alternative approach to measuring current monetary inflation," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Dec.
    6. Michael F. Bryan & Stephen G. Cecchetti & Rodney L. Wiggins II, 1997. "Efficient Inflation Estimation," NBER Working Papers 6183, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Saeed Zaman, 2019. "Cyclical versus Acyclical Inflation: A Deeper Dive," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue September.
    2. Daniel R. Carroll & Ross Cohen-Kristiansen, 2020. "Why Are Headline PCE and Median PCE Inflations So Far Apart?," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 2020(24), pages 1-6, October.
    3. Garciga, Christian & Verbrugge, Randal, 2021. "Robust covariance matrix estimation and identification of unusual data points: New tools," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 176-202.
    4. Randal J. Verbrugge & Saeed Zaman, 2022. "Improving Inflation Forecasts Using Robust Measures," Working Papers 22-23R, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, revised 30 May 2023.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antoine Lalliard & Pierre-Antoine Robert, 2022. "A possible new indicator to measure core inflation in the euro area [Un nouvel indicateur possible pour mesurer l’inflation sous-jacente en zone euro]," Bulletin de la Banque de France, Banque de France, issue 240.
    2. Brent Meyer & Guhan Venkatu, 2012. "Trimmed-mean inflation statistics: just hit the one in the middle," Working Papers (Old Series) 1217, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    3. Brent Meyer & Saeed Zaman, 2019. "The usefulness of the median CPI in Bayesian VARs used for macroeconomic forecasting and policy," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 603-630, August.
    4. Oguz Atuk & Mustafa Utku Ozmen, 2009. "Design and Evaluation of Core Inflation Measures for Turkey," Working Papers 0903, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey.
    5. Carlomagno, Guillermo & Fornero, Jorge & Sansone, Andrés, 2023. "A proposal for constructing and evaluating core inflation measures," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 4(3).
    6. Guillermo Carlomagno & Jorge Fornero & Andrés Sansone, 2021. "Toward a general framework for constructing and evaluating core inflation measures," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 913, Central Bank of Chile.
    7. Jim Dolmas & Mark A. Wynne, 2008. "Measuring core inflation: notes from a 2007 Dallas Fed conference," Staff Papers, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue May.
    8. Mark A. Wynne, 2008. "Core inflation: a review of some conceptual issues," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 90(May), pages 205-228.
    9. Seamus Hogan & Marianne Johnson & Thérèse Laflèche, 2001. "Core Inflation," Technical Reports 89, Bank of Canada.
    10. Jamie Armour, 2006. "An Evaluation of Core Inflation Measures," Staff Working Papers 06-10, Bank of Canada.
    11. Laurence Ball & Sandeep Mazumder, 2020. "The Nonpuzzling Behavior of Median Inflation," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Gonzalo Castex & Jordi Galí & Diego Saravia (ed.),Changing Inflation Dynamics,Evolving Monetary Policy, edition 1, volume 27, chapter 3, pages 049-070, Central Bank of Chile.
    12. Laurence M. Ball & Daniel Leigh & Prachi Mishra & Antonio Spilimbergo, 2021. "Measuring U.S. Core Inflation: The Stress Test of COVID-19," NBER Working Papers 29609, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Marlene Amstad & Simon M. Potter & Robert W. Rich, 2014. "The FRBNY staff underlying inflation gauge: UIG," Staff Reports 672, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    14. Durai, S. Raja Sethu & Ramachandran, M., 2007. "Core inflation for India," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 365-383, April.
    15. Vega, Juan Luis & Wynne, Mark A., 2001. "An evaluation of some measures of core inflation for the euro area," Working Paper Series 0053, European Central Bank.
    16. Janet Koech & Mark Wynne, 2013. "Core Import Price Inflation in the United States," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 717-730, September.
    17. Pelinescu, Elena & Dospinescu, Andrei Silviu, 2008. "Alternative Measures of Core Inflation in Romania," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 5(1), pages 134-148, March.
    18. Baqaee, David, 2010. "Using wavelets to measure core inflation: The case of New Zealand," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 241-255, December.
    19. Scott Roger, 1998. "Core inflation: concepts, uses and measurement," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series G98/9, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    20. Landau, Bettina, 2000. "Core inflation rates: a comparison of methods based on west German data," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2000,04, Deutsche Bundesbank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    inflation; measurement;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedcec:00102. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: 4D Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbclus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.