Are International Food Price Spikes the Source of Egypt's High Inflation?

Al-Shawarby, Sherine ; Selim, Hoda

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ADMINISTERED PRICES;    ADVANCED ECONOMIES;    AGRICULTURE;    BEHAVIOR OF PRICES;    BUDGET DEFICIT;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6177
RP-ID  :  WPS6177

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper examines whether domesticinflation spikes in Egypt during 2001-2011 were primarilythe result of external food price shocks. To estimate thepass-through of international food price inflation todomestic price inflation, two different methodologies areused: a two-step regression model estimates the pass-throughin the long run, and a vector autoregression model providesthe short-run estimates. The empirical evidence confirmsthat pass-through is high in the short term, but not in thelong run. More precisely, the results show that (i) long-runpass-through to domestic food inflation is relatively low,lying between 13 and 16 percent, while the long-termspill-over from domestic food inflation to core inflation ismoderate, lying around 60 percent; (ii) in the short term,pass-through is relatively high, estimated around 29 percentafter 6 months and around two-thirds after a year, but thespill-over effect to core inflation is limited; (iii)international food price shocks explain only a small portionof domestic inflation shocks in both the short and longterms; and (iv) international price inflation has asymmetriceffects on domestic prices.