IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rba/rbardp/rdp2005-05.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Underlying Inflation: Concepts, Measurement and Performance

Author

Listed:
  • Ivan Roberts

    (Reserve Bank of Australia)

Abstract

This paper explores the concept of underlying inflation and the properties of various measures of underlying inflation in the Australian context. Underlying inflation measures are routinely calculated and monitored by central banks in many countries, including the Reserve Bank of Australia. Alternative measurement concepts are explored, and a range of measures that have been calculated for Australia are discussed and evaluated on the basis of statistical criteria. These criteria capture the intuition that a good measure of underlying inflation should be less volatile than CPI (or headline) inflation, be unbiased with respect to CPI inflation, and capture the ‘trend’ in CPI inflation so that, on average, CPI inflation will tend to adjust towards the measure of underlying inflation. In the Australian context, statistical measures of underlying inflation, such as the trimmed mean or weighted median, perform fairly satisfactorily against these criteria. The performance of these measures can be further improved by seasonally adjusting prices at the CPI component level. Although underlying inflation measures have become less necessary in the past decade as inflation itself has become less volatile, these findings suggest that underlying inflation measures can still add value to the analysis of inflationary trends.

Suggested Citation

  • Ivan Roberts, 2005. "Underlying Inflation: Concepts, Measurement and Performance," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2005-05, Reserve Bank of Australia.
  • Handle: RePEc:rba:rbardp:rdp2005-05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2005/pdf/rdp2005-05.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael F. Bryan & Stephen G. Cecchetti, 1993. "The consumer price index as a measure of inflation," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 29(Q IV), pages 15-24.
    2. Michael F. Bryan & Stephen G. Cecchetti & Rodney L. Wiggins, 1997. "Efficient inflation estimation," Working Papers (Old Series) 9707, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    3. Juan-Luis Vega & Mark A. Wynne, 2003. "A First Assessment of Some Measures of Core Inflation for the Euro Area," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 4, pages 269-306, August.
    4. Quah, Danny & Vahey, Shaun P, 1995. "Measuring Core Inflation?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(432), pages 1130-1144, September.
    5. Seamus Hogan & Marianne Johnson & Thérèse Laflèche, 2001. "Core Inflation," Technical Reports 89, Bank of Canada.
    6. José Ferreira Machado, 2001. "Using the First Principal Component as a Core Inflation Indicator," Working Papers w200109, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    7. Michael F. Bryan & Stephen G. Cecchetti, 1999. "The Monthly Measurement of Core Inflation in Japan," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 17(1), pages 77-101, May.
    8. Jonathan Kearns, 1998. "The Distribution and Measurement of Inflation," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp9810, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    9. Shiratsuka, Shigenori, 1997. "Inflation Measures for Monetary Policy: Measuring the Underlying Inflation Trend and Its Implication for Monetary Policy Implementation," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 15(2), pages 1-26, December.
    10. Juan‐Luis Vega & Mark A. Wynne, 2003. "A First Assessment of Some Measures of Core Inflation for the Euro Area," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 4(3), pages 269-306, August.
    11. Scott Roger, 1997. "A robust measure of core inflation in New Zealand, 1949-96," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series G97/7, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    12. Robert Dixon & G.C. Lim, 2004. "Underlying Inflation in Australia: Are the Existing Measures Satisfactory?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 80(251), pages 373-386, December.
    13. Marques, Carlos Robalo & Neves, Pedro Duarte & da Silva, Afonso Goncalves, 2002. "Why should Central Banks avoid the use of the underlying inflation indicator?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 17-23, March.
    14. Laurence Ball & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1995. "Relative-Price Changes as Aggregate Supply Shocks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 110(1), pages 161-193.
    15. José R. Maria, 2004. "On the Use of the First Principal Component as a Core Inflation Indicator," Working Papers w200403, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    16. Michael F. Bryan & Stephen G. Cecchetti, 1994. "Measuring Core Inflation," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy, pages 195-219, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Aucremanne, L., 2000. "The Use of Robust Estimators as Measures of Core Inflation," Papers 2, Warwick - Development Economics Research Centre.
    18. Clements, Kenneth W & Izan, H Y, 1987. "The Measurement of Inflation: A Stochastic Approach," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 5(3), pages 339-350, July.
    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. David Norman & Anthony Richards, 2012. "The Forecasting Performance of Single Equation Models of Inflation," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(280), pages 64-78, March.
    2. Andrew Stone & Troy Wheatley & Louise Wilkinson, 2005. "A Small Model of the Australian Macroeconomy: An Update," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2005-11, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    3. Atchana Waiquamdee & Pranee Sutthasri & Surach Tanboon, 2010. "Monetary policy and underlying inflation pressures: the essence of monetary policy design," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Measurement of inflation and the Philippine monetary policy framework, volume 49, pages 347-367, Bank for International Settlements.
    4. Liam J. A. Lenten, 2010. "Bananas and petrol: further evidence on the forecasting accuracy of the ABS 'headline' and 'underlying' rates of inflation," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(6), pages 556-572.
    5. Zelda Blignaut & Greg Farrell & Victor Munyama & Logan Rangasamy, 2009. "A Note On The Trimmed Mean Measure Of Core Inflation In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 77(4), pages 538-552, December.
    6. Jamie Hall & Jarkko P. Jääskelä, 2011. "Inflation Volatility and Forecast Accuracy," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 44(4), pages 404-417, December.
    7. Andrea Brischetto & Anthony Richards, 2006. "The Performance of Trimmed Mean Measures of Underlying Inflation," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2006-10, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    8. Christian Gillitzer & John Simon, 2006. "Component-smoothed Inflation: Estimating the Persistent Component of Inflation in Real Time," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2006-11, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    9. Péter Gábriel & György Molnár & Judit Rariga, 2013. "Measures of underlying inflation," MNB Bulletin (discontinued), Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary), vol. 8(3), pages 25-35, October.
    10. Atchana Waiquamdee & Pranee Sutthasri & Tientip Subhanij & Surach Tanboon, 2009. "Monetary Policy and Underlying Inflation Pressures: The Essence of Monetary Policy Design," Working Papers 2009-11, Monetary Policy Group, Bank of Thailand.

    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. Mick Silver, 2006. "Core Inflation Measures and Statistical Issues in Choosing Among Them," IMF Working Papers 2006/097, International Monetary Fund.
    2. Jamie Armour, 2006. "An Evaluation of Core Inflation Measures," Staff Working Papers 06-10, Bank of Canada.
    3. Juan‐Luis Vega & Mark A. Wynne, 2003. "A First Assessment of Some Measures of Core Inflation for the Euro Area," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 4(3), pages 269-306, August.
    4. Juan-Luis Vega & Mark A. Wynne, 2003. "A First Assessment of Some Measures of Core Inflation for the Euro Area," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 4, pages 269-306, August.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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).
    8. 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.
    9. Andrade, Isabel & O'Brien, Raymond, 2007. "A measure of core inflation in the UK," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0708, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    10. Meyler, Aidan, 1999. "A Statistical Measure Of Core Inflation," Research Technical Papers 2/RT/99, Central Bank of Ireland.
    11. Luc Aucremanne & Guy Brys & Peter J Rousseeuw & Anja Struyf & Mia Hubert, 2003. "Inflation, relative prices and nominal rigidities," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Monetary policy in a changing environment, volume 19, pages 81-105, Bank for International Settlements.
    12. Scott Roger, 1998. "Core inflation: concepts, uses and measurement," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series G98/9, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    13. Vega, Juan Luis & Wynne, Mark A., 2001. "An evaluation of some measures of core inflation for the euro area," Working Paper Series 53, European Central Bank.
    14. Gagik G. Aghajanyan, 2005. "Core inflation in a small transition country: choice of optimal measures," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 2(1), pages 83-110, June.
    15. Abdul Aleem & Amine Lahiani, 2011. "Estimation and evaluation of core inflation measures," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(25), pages 3619-3629.
    16. Luc Aucremanne, 2000. "The use of robust estimators as measures of core inflation," Working Paper Research 02, National Bank of Belgium.
    17. Shahiduzzaman, Md, 2009. "Measuring Core Inflation in Bangladesh: The Choice of Alternative Methods," Bangladesh Development Studies, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), vol. 32(1), pages 23-44, March.
    18. Mark A. Wynne, 2008. "Core inflation: a review of some conceptual issues," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue May, pages 205-228.
    19. Todd E. Clark, 2001. "Comparing measures of core inflation," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 86(Q II), pages 5-31.
    20. Seamus Hogan & Marianne Johnson & Thérèse Laflèche, 2001. "Core Inflation," Technical Reports 89, Bank of Canada.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    underlying inflation; core inflation; trimmed mean; weighted median; volatility-weighted measures;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation

    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:rba:rbardp:rdp2005-05. 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: Paula Drew (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rbagvau.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.