Various Measures of Underlying Inflation in Poland 1995 – 1998
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PRZEMYSLAW WOZNIAK
As inflation targeting gains popularity policy makers, monetary authorities seek to design a measure of inflation that would be a good indicator of fundamental demand-driven price movements, i.e. the underlying or core rate of inflation. It is widely acknowledged that the Consumer Price Index (which is the simple weighted average of price changes of the set of goods and services comprising the consumers’ expenditure basket) is a ratherdeficient indicator of the “trend” inflation as it is highly volatile, seasonal and contains a lot of noise. The ideal measure of core inflation should account for the long-term trend movements in prices that reflect the state of demand in the economy and discard various one-off shocks coming from supply side.