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Analyzing South Africa’s inflation persistence using an ARFIMA model with Markov-switching fractional differencing parameter

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  • Mehmet Balcilar
  • Rangan Gupta
  • Charl Jooste

    (Eastern Mediterranean University, Northern Cyprus
    University of Pretoria, South Africa)

Abstract

The successful conduct of monetary policy relies on accurately characterising inflation’s data generating properties. Monetary policy errors that allow inflation to transition to a high inflation regime that is very persistent might have costly economic implications as the central bank attempts to bring inflation to a lower regime, say at some target level. This paper studies the duration of inflation persistence over time and across various policy regimes. We test the inertial properties of South African inflation in a Markov-Switching autoregressive fractionally integrated moving average model. We isolate period of high inflation and low inflation and analyse how persistent it is. This is an unique application to South Africa. The use of a fractional differencing ARIMA model allows for the possibility that inflation is close to a unit root, however, still mean reverting. This implies that shocks to inflation is very persistent and take long to dissipate. The inflation persistence is measured using a test by Ng and Perron (2001). We show that inflation is more persistent during high inflation episodes relative to low inflation episodes and more volatile during low inflation periods compared to high inflation periods. We estimate that it takes approximately 70 months for 50 percent of the shocks to dissipate in a high inflation regime compared to 10 months in a low inflation regime. The model identifies three structural breaks - a low inflation regime from 1920 until 1960, a high inflation regime from 1961 until 2003, and another low inflation regime over part of the inflation targeting period, 2003-2014. We also show that inflation persistence in the high inflation regime transitioned to a low inflation regime only much later than the implementation of inflation targeting - hinting that agents take time to adjust expectations. This has an important consequence for monetary policy - monetary policy errors that allow inflation to transition to a high inflation regime may take many months for any corrective policy to become effective.

Suggested Citation

  • Mehmet Balcilar & Rangan Gupta & Charl Jooste, 2016. "Analyzing South Africa’s inflation persistence using an ARFIMA model with Markov-switching fractional differencing parameter," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 50(1), pages 47-57, January-M.
    • Handle: RePEc:jda:journl:vol.50:year:2016:issue1:pp:47-57
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Stan du Plessis & Ben Smit & Rudi Steinbach, 2014. "A mediumsized open economy DSGE model of South Africa," Working Papers 6319, South African Reserve Bank.
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    8. Rangan Gupta & Josine Uwilingiye, 2012. "Comparing South African Inflation Volatility Across Monetary Policy Regimes: An Application of Saphe Cracking," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 46(1), pages 45-54, January-J.
    9. Haldrup Niels & Nielsen Morten Ø., 2006. "Directional Congestion and Regime Switching in a Long Memory Model for Electricity Prices," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(3), pages 1-24, September.
    10. Massimiliano Caporin & Juliusz Preś, 2013. "Forecasting Temperature Indices Density with Time‐Varying Long‐Memory Models," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(4), pages 339-352, July.
    11. 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.
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    Cited by:

    1. Francis Leni Anguyo & Rangan Gupta & Kevin Kotzé, 2020. "Inflation dynamics in Uganda: a quantile regression approach," Macroeconomics and Finance in Emerging Market Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 161-187, May.
    2. Andrew Phiri, 2018. "Inflation persistence in BRICS countries: A quantile autoregressive (QAR) approach," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center, vol. 14(1), pages 97-104, January.
    3. Goran Petrevski, 2023. "Macroeconomic Effects of Inflation Targeting: A Survey of the Empirical Literature," Papers 2305.17474, arXiv.org.
    4. Fernando Zarzosa Valdivia, 2020. "Inflation Dynamics in the ABC (Argentina, Brazil and Chile) countries," Ensayos de Política Económica, Departamento de Investigación Francisco Valsecchi, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina., vol. 3(2), pages 77-99, Octubre.
    5. Sihle Kubheka, 2023. "South African inflation modelling using bootstrapped long short-term memory methods," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(7), pages 1-11, July.
    6. Petrevski, Goran, 2023. "Macroeconomic Effects of Inflation Targeting: A Survey of the Empirical Literature," EconStor Preprints 271122, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    7. Sakiru Adebola Solarin & Luis A. Gil-Alana & Carmen Lafuente, 2020. "Persistence of the Misery Index in African Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 825-841, February.
    8. Massimiliano Caporin & Rangan Gupta, 2017. "Time-varying persistence in US inflation," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 423-439, September.
    9. Phiri, Andrew, 2017. "Inflation persistence in BRICS countries: A quantile autoregressive (QAR) model," MPRA Paper 79956, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Gideon Du Rand & Kevin Kotze & Stan Du Plessis, 2015. "Measuring Core Inflation in South Africa," Working Papers 503, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    11. Ibrahim D. Raheem, 2018. "Inflation rate of 14–16% is fair for the sub-Saharan African dollarization," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 42(4), pages 779-794, October.
    12. Stan Plessis & Gideon Rand & Kevin Kotzé, 2015. "Measuring Core Inflation in South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 83(4), pages 527-548, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inflation persistence; MS-ARFIMA; inflation regimes;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • C20 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - General

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