The Unassuming Economist

From a paper by Paramita Mukherjee and Dipankor Coondoo:

“Recently several changes have been adopted in the conduct of monetary policy in India, like tracking CPI (Consumer Price Index), targeting inflation and so on. However, certain curious features of inflation may have some implications on the effectiveness of such measures. This article tries to explore the nature of inflation during the last decade. There are certain views about the nature of Indian inflation from the structuralist perspective. This article contributes to the literature by empirically testing those propositions and coming out with some significant policy implications. The article is based on monthly data from January 2006 to March 2016. By employing econometric techniques like cointegration and vector autoregression (VAR), the article tries to explain the movements of different components of WPI (Wholesale Price Index) and CPI inflation, both core and headline inflation and how they are related to macroeconomic policy variables. The empirical analyses focus on finding out the existence of co-movements among the inflation and macroeconomic variables, explaining the role of components like food and fuel price in driving CPI and WPI. The results have some important policy implications. First, the movements of WPI and CPI and their headline and core counterparts are not explained by same set of variables. Second, food inflation is not explained by agricultural output pointing to the insufficient increase in supply in agriculture. Third, the determinants of CPI headline and core inflation are not same. So, both of them should be tracked while formulating policies. The relationship among the components of inflation point to the possibility of some adjustment in demand from one set of goods to another, implying adjustments in terms of relative prices which needs further exploration.”

From a paper by Pulapre Balakrishnan, and M Parameswaran:

“India has seen lower inflation by historical standards for the past 6 years. This has been attributed to the adoption of inflation targeting by the central bank, the Reserve Bank of India in 2016. In particular, it has been asserted that the lower inflation reflects the anchoring of expectations. We evaluate these claims. An econometric investigation indicates that there is no basis to the claim that inflation has been lowered due to the anchoring of expectations. On the other hand, we are able to account for the trajectory of inflation in India after 2016 in terms of an alternative explanation of inflation, namely the structuralist.”

From a paper by Gokcen Ogruk Maz, Sinan Yildirim, Mjellma Carabregu-Vokshi, and But Dedaj:

“This study examines the effect of inflation targeting adoption on stock market capitalization in 39 developing countries from 1995 to 2023. Baseline propensity score matching with two-way fixed effects shows positive but sometimes insignificant effects. Robustness checks excluding the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis, hyperinflation episodes, and both combined often yield larger and more significant estimates. To address concerns about staggered policy adoption, we use the Staggered Difference-in-Differences estimator, finding that significance emerges five to ten years after adoption. Results suggest IT supports financial development by enhancing investor confidence and macroeconomic stability, especially in lower-volatility environments.”

From a paper by Gabriel Caldas Montes, Helder Ferreira de Mendonça, and Matheus Rosa Ribeiro:

“Fiscal transparency is essential for the expectations formation process, as governmental fiscal opacity often leads to forecast errors due to insufficient information. This study examines the relationship between fiscal unpredictability, particularly related to the primary budget, and the lack of consensus in expectations for external sector variables in Brazil. Specifically, based on several regression models considering different expectations horizons, we investigate whether fiscal opacity generates a lack of consensus in expectations for the trade balance, foreign direct investment and exchange rate. Additionally, we propose a composite indicator for the lack of consensus in external sector expectations derived from principal component analysis of related variables. The findings indicate that fiscal opacity increases the lack of consensus in expectations for the external sector. In brief, our results highlight the need for greater fiscal transparency to reduce uncertainty and improve consensus in economic expectations, particularly in expectations for external sector variables.”

From a paper by Karan Bhasin, Kajal Lahiri and Prakash Loungani:

“This paper estimates uncertainty shocks using density forecasts from the Reserve Bank of India’s Survey of Professional Forecasters (2008–2023). These forecasts enable a direct measurement of unobservable uncertainty in real-time, as the first difference in the second moment of the densities. In addition, we propose a forecast calibration test based on the predictive sequential principle. We report five key findings: (i) macroeconomic uncertainty in India has been on a decline since 2008; (ii) shocks to uncertainty derived from density forecasts compare favorably with other popular measures, viz. Economic Policy Uncertainty and VIX; (iii) prequential tests indicate forecasts to be calibrated; (iv) uncertainty is affected primarily by negative news and is variance rational, and (v) it captures demand shocks even after controlling for global uncertainty shocks, in contrast to EPU and VIX, which are primarily driven by supply shocks. Distinguishing these shocks is crucial for optimal monetary policy.”