We explore the ability of core inflation to predict headline CPI annual inflation for a sample of 8 developing economies in Latin America during the period January 1995-May 2017. Our in-sample and out-of-sample results are roughly consistent in providing evidence of predictability in the great majority of our countries, although, as usual, a slightly stronger evidence of predictability comes from the insample analysis. The bulk of the out-of-sample evidence of predictability concentrates at the short horizons of 1 and 6 months. In contrast, at longer horizons of 12 and 24 months, we only find evidence of predictability for two countries: Chile and Colombia. This is both important and challenging, given that monetary authorities in our sample of developing countries are currently implementing or given steps toward the future implementation of inflation targeting regimes, which are heavily based on long run inflation forecasts.
We explore the ability of traditional core inflation -consumer prices excluding food and energy-to predict headline CPI annual inflation. We analyze a sample of OECD and non-OECD economies using monthly data from January 1994 to March 2015. Our results indicate that sizable predictability emerges for a small subset of countries. For the rest of our economies predictability is either subtle or undetectable. These results hold true even when implementing an out-of-sample test of Granger causality especially designed to compare forecasts from nested models. Our findings partially challenge the common wisdom about the ability of core inflation to forecast headline inflation, and suggest a careful weighting of the traditional exclusion of food and energy prices when assessing the size of the monetary stimulus.JEL Codes: E31, E17, E37, E52, E58
We explore the ability of core inflation to predict headline CPI annual inflation for a sample of 8 developing economies in Latin America during the period January 1995-May 2017. Our in-sample and out-of-sample results are roughly consistent in providing evidence of predictability in the great majority of our countries, although, as usual, a slightly stronger evidence of predictability comes from the insample analysis. The bulk of the out-of-sample evidence of predictability concentrates at the short horizons of 1 and 6 months. In contrast, at longer horizons of 12 and 24 months, we only find evidence of predictability for two countries: Chile and Colombia. This is both important and challenging, given that monetary authorities in our sample of developing countries are currently implementing or given steps toward the future implementation of inflation targeting regimes, which are heavily based on long run inflation forecasts. JEL Codes: E31, E17, E37, E52, E58, F37, O1, O2
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