Commodity Prices and Inflation in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia
IMF Working Papers, June 1, 2010
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- Canonical URL
- Commodity Prices and Inflation in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia
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Bibliographic details
- Published: June 1, 2010
- Series: IMF Working Papers
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9781455201181.001
Key empirical finding: uniform inflation pattern (1996-2009)
- Inflation followed a strikingly uniform pattern in all countries of the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia during the period 1996-2009, falling until about 2000 and then rising.
- International fuel prices do not help explain this pattern.
- The pattern of inflation is explained mainly by:
- past inflation,
- the strength of the US dollar,
- US inflation,
- and—depending on the subset of countries analyzed—monetary and exchange rate policies and nonfuel commodity prices.
- The conclusion regarding the limited role of international fuel prices is robust across different cross sections of countries and when different regression variables are included.
Scope, data, and robustness
- Coverage period: 1996-2009.
- The robustness of results was tested by:
- using different cross sections of countries, and
- including different regression variables.
- The main explanatory variables retained across specifications were past inflation, US dollar strength, and US inflation; other variables (monetary policy, exchange rate arrangements, nonfuel commodity prices) mattered for particular country subsets.
Subject focus and keywords
- Subject areas: Commodity prices, Exchange rate arrangements, Exchange rates, Fuel prices, Inflation.
- Keywords: commodity price, exchange rate regime, inflation terms, inflation-output tradeoff, world inflation, WP.
Publication metadata (selection)
- Pages: 33
- Volume: 2010
- Issue: 135
- Series: Working Paper No. 2010/135
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9781455201181.001
- Stock No: WPIEA2010135
- ISBN: 9781455201181
- ISSN: 1018-5941
International Monetary Fund, "Commodity Prices and Inflation in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia", IMF Working Paper No. 2010/135, June 1, 2010.