IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/22948.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Understanding Inflation in India

Author

Listed:
  • Laurence Ball
  • Anusha Chari
  • Prachi Mishra

Abstract

This paper examines the behavior of quarterly inflation in India since 1994, both headline inflation and core inflation as measured by the weighted median of price changes across industries. We explain core inflation with a Phillips curve in which the inflation rate depends on a slow-moving average of past inflation and on the deviation of output from trend. Headline inflation is more volatile than core: it fluctuates due to large changes in the relative prices of certain industries, which are largely but not exclusively industries that produce food and energy. There is some evidence that changes in headline inflation feed into expected inflation and future core inflation. Several aspects of India’s inflation process are similar to inflation in advanced economies in the 1970s and 80s.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurence Ball & Anusha Chari & Prachi Mishra, 2016. "Understanding Inflation in India," NBER Working Papers 22948, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22948
    Note: DEV EFG IFM ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22948.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Laurence Ball & Sandeep Mazumder, 2019. "A Phillips Curve with Anchored Expectations and Short‐Term Unemployment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(1), pages 111-137, February.
    2. Laurence Ball & Sandeep Mazumder, 2011. "Inflation Dynamics and the Great Recession," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 42(1 (Spring), pages 337-405.
    3. Mishra, Prachi & Roy, Devesh, 2012. "Explaining Inflation in India: The Role of Food Prices," India Policy Forum, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 8(1), pages 139-224.
    4. Samarjit Das, 2003. "Modelling money, price and output in India: a vector autoregressive and moving average (VARMA) approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(10), pages 1219-1225.
    5. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2007. "Why Has U.S. Inflation Become Harder to Forecast?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 3-33, February.
    6. Laurence Ball & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1995. "Relative-Price Changes as Aggregate Supply Shocks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 161-193.
    7. Subir Gokarn, 1997. "Economic reforms and relative price movements in India: a 'supply shock' approach," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(2), pages 299-324.
    8. Mazumder, Sandeep, 2011. "The stability of the Phillips curve in India: Does the Lucas critique apply?," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 528-539.
    9. Naveen Srinivasan & Vidya Mahambare & M. Ramachandran, 2006. "Modelling Inflation in India: A Critique of the Structuralist Approach," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 4(2), pages 45-58, July.
    10. Pami Dua & Upasna Gaur, 2010. "Determination of inflation in an open economy Phillips curve framework: the case of developed and developing Asian countries," Macroeconomics and Finance in Emerging Market Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 33-51.
    11. Subir Gokarn, 2011. "The price of protein," Macroeconomics and Finance in Emerging Market Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 327-335, July.
    12. Michael Debabrata Patra & Muneesh Kapur, 2012. "A monetary policy model for India," Macroeconomics and Finance in Emerging Market Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 18-41, March.
    13. Kapur, Muneesh, 2013. "Revisiting the Phillips curve for India and inflation forecasting," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 17-27.
    14. D. M. Nachane & R. Lakshmi, 2002. "Dynamics of inflation in India - a P-Star approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 101-110.
    15. Virmani, Vineet, 2004. "Estimating Output Gap for the Indian Economy: Comparing Results from Unobserved-Components Models and the Hodrick-Prescott Filter," IIMA Working Papers WP2004-04-02, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    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. Ashima Goyal & Sritama Ray, 2022. "Exploring correlations between aggregate demand and supply shocks in India," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2022-004, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    2. Pulapre Balakrishnan & M Parameswaran, 2019. "Modeling the Dynamics of Inflation in India," Working Papers 16, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    3. Santosh Kumar Dash, 2017. "Is Money Supply Exogenous? Evidence from India," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 11(2), pages 167-195, May.
    4. Pulapre Balakrishnan & M. Parameswaran, 2021. "Modelling Inflation in India," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 19(3), pages 555-581, September.
    5. Das, Abhiman & Lahiri, Kajal & Zhao, Yongchen, 2019. "Inflation expectations in India: Learning from household tendency surveys," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 980-993.
    6. Ashima Goyal & Abhishek Kumar, 2022. "What drives Indian inflation? Demand or supply," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2022-013, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    7. Bhavesh Salunkhe & Anuradha Patnaik, 2019. "Inflation Dynamics and Monetary Policy in India: A New Keynesian Phillips Curve Perspective," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 8(2), pages 144-179, December.
    8. Taniya Ghosh & Sohini Sahu & Siddhartha Chattopadhyay, 2021. "Inflation expectations of households in India: Role of oil prices, economic policy uncertainty, and spillover of global financial uncertainty," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(2), pages 230-251, April.
    9. Pulapre Balakrishnan & M. Parameswaran, 2022. "What lowered inflation in India: monetary policy or commodity prices?," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 97-111, June.
    10. Pulapre Balakrishnan & M. Parameswaran, 2019. "Modeling the Dynamics of Inflation in India," Working Papers 1023, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.

    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. Behera, Harendra & Wahi, Garima & Kapur, Muneesh, 2018. "Phillips curve relationship in an emerging economy: Evidence from India," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 116-126.
    2. Harendra Behera & Garima Wahi & Muneesh Kapur, 2017. "Phillips Curve Relationship in India: Evidence from State-Level Analysis," Working Papers id:11973, eSocialSciences.
    3. Bhavesh Salunkhe & Anuradha Patnaik, 2019. "Inflation Dynamics and Monetary Policy in India: A New Keynesian Phillips Curve Perspective," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 8(2), pages 144-179, December.
    4. Sunil Paul & Sartaj Rasool Rather & M. Ramachandran, 2015. "Money and Inflation: Evidence from P-Star Model," Working Papers 2015-115, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.
    5. Saakshi Jha & Sohini Sahu, 2020. "Forecasting inflation for India with the Phillips Curve: Evidence from internet search data," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(3), pages 2372-2379.
    6. Kapur, Muneesh, 2013. "Revisiting the Phillips curve for India and inflation forecasting," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 17-27.
    7. Bańbura, Marta & Bobeica, Elena, 2023. "Does the Phillips curve help to forecast euro area inflation?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 364-390.
    8. Kapur, Muneesh & Behera, Harendra, 2012. "Monetary Transmission Mechanism in India: A Quarterly Model," MPRA Paper 70631, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Biswajit Maitra, 2016. "Inflation Dynamics in India: Relative Role of Structural and Monetary Factors," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 14(2), pages 237-255, December.
    10. Kristin Forbes, 2019. "Has globalization changed the inflation process?," BIS Working Papers 791, Bank for International Settlements.
    11. Paul, Biru Paksha, 2009. "In search of the Phillips curve for India," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 479-488, September.
    12. Sadhan Kumar Chattopadhyay & Arghya Kusum Mitra, 2023. "Monetary policy transmission in India under the base rate and MCLR regimes: a comparative study," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, December.
    13. Behera, Harendra Kumar & Patra, Michael Debabrata, 2022. "Measuring trend inflation in India," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    14. Franz Xaver Zobl & Martin Ertl, 2021. "The Condemned Live Longer – New Evidence of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve in Central and Eastern Europe," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 671-699, September.
    15. Mazumder, Sandeep, 2018. "Inflation in Europe after the Great Recession," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 202-213.
    16. Kapur, Muneesh, 2018. "Macroeconomic Policies and Transmission Dynamics in India," MPRA Paper 88566, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Kristin Forbes, 2019. "Inflation Dynamics: Dead, Dormant, or Determined Abroad?," NBER Working Papers 26496, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Tule, Moses K. & Salisu, Afees A. & Chiemeke, Charles C., 2019. "Can agricultural commodity prices predict Nigeria's inflation?," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 16(C).
    19. Peter Hooper & Frederic S. Mishkin & Amir Sufi, 2019. "Prospects for Inflation in a High Pressure Economy: Is the Phillips Curve Dead or is It Just Hibernating?," NBER Working Papers 25792, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Mikael Juselius & Claudio Borio & Piti Disyatat & Mathias Drehmann, 2017. "Monetary Policy, the Financial Cycle, and Ultra-Low Interest Rates," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 13(3), pages 55-89, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • F0 - International Economics - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:22948. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.