Inflation

The impact of inflation on dispersion of relative prices is examined in a cointegration framework using a data set of all seven components of the consumer price index from India. The empirical evidence indicates that the dispersion of relative price increases with an increase in deviation of inflation from a certain threshold rate in either direction but not with inflation per se, as is traditionally believed. The crucial inference that emerges from the empirical findings is the presence of a threshold inflation rate corresponding to which the dispersion of relative prices is minimised, and this threshold turns out to be 5%.

The current practice of measuring the inflation rate from fixed base weight index is outdated and likely to overstate inflation substantially compared to the chain weighted index used in developed countries. Similarly, the treatment of house rent allowance revisions to estimate the housing Consumer Price Index also significantly overstates the headline inflation. Economy-wide inflationary expectations also need proper measurement. Inflation-targeting framework without proper measurement of inflation rate can involve very high real costs and make the policy counterproductive.

The transmission of global demand, oil supply and monetary policy shocks on the Indian economy are empirically examined using a parsimonious structural vector autoregression model for the period 1996 to 2016. Global demand shocks exert the most dominant effect causing fluctuations in various macroeconomic variables, whereas global monetary policy spillovers play an important role in affecting domestic short-term interest rates and financial asset prices. Global oil supply shocks, given its relative weightage as an intermediate input, have a greater impact on wholesale price index inflation than on consumer price index inflation. Given the rising trade and financial integration of the Indian economy, a quantitative impact analysis of these global shocks assumes importance for macroeconomic and monetary policy frameworks.

General discussions on the Indian macroeconomy have centred on two things in the recent past: the impact of depreciation of rupee and the effects of falling world oil prices. Using the structural vector autoregressive approach, the dynamic relationship between movements in oil prices and exchange rates with macroeconomic variables like price, output, interest rate and money are investigated. Additionally, a comparative analysis is conducted to show how each of these structural shocks has historically affected price, output and exchange rate. The results show strong link among these variables. Three results have important policy implications: (i) the world price of oil has a great potential to affect India's output, (ii) targeting depreciation of rupee to expand output may not be an effective policy tool for the RBI, and (iii) variation in rupee's value can have medium- to long-term impact on world price of oil.

The politics and economics of interest rate formation in this country must be studied carefully. Lowering the interest rate raises stock prices in an environment where they themselves cannot move up thanks to the fundamentals of the economy that are not conducive.