Oil Prices and Inflation

Import Prices and Inflation

Understanding the consequences of international developments for domestic inflation is an extremely important question for central banks. But before we claim to have measured the extent of import price pass-through, it is necessary to be clear on exactly what such a number is intended to mean. One can attempt to come up with an answer on the basis of either economic theory or empirical evidence...

Inflation and health care prices.

Do Oil Futures Prices Help Predict Future Oil Prices?

2004 and by more than 40% since the beginning of 2005.Though the U.S. economy has apparently absorbed this supply shock well so far, the path of future oil prices remains a concern for monetary policymakers. Higher oil prices can damp demand, as consumers and firms spend more of their budgets on oil-related products and less on other goods and services. Furthermore, if higher oil prices are pas...

Budget deficits, inflation risk, and asset prices

Kitchen examines how US budget deficit news affects asset prices and concludes that news of lower deficits reduces the inflation risk premium. This paper constructs narrative histories of several deficit-reduction laws to identify when markets learned that deficits would fall. It then estimates a multi-factor model that allows the inflation risk premium to vary following news of deficit-reducti...

Relative Goods’ Prices and Pure Inflation

This paper uses a dynamic factor model for the quarterly changes in consumption goods’ prices to separate them into three components: idiosyncratic relative-price changes, aggregate relative-price changes, and changes in the unit of account. The model identifies a measure of “pure” inflation: the common component in goods’ inflation rates that has an equiproportional effect on all prices and is...