Núcleo da inflação: análise comparativa dos metódos "média aparada" e "exclusão prévia" aplicados a dados mensais desagregados

Abstract

This article wishes to discuss some methods that are used to estimate core inflation. Since the Brazilian inflation target policy was adopted, as well as in other countries, core inflation has arisen as a major issue. The "previous exclusion ofitems" and trimmed mean methods are applied to disaggregated data of IPC-FIPE, from January-1975 through December-2000. Results show thatthe trimmed mean method underestimates IPC-FIPE in the long term, no matter the inflation trend. The previous exclusion of items method is a suitable indicator of the inflation trend only in the period of prices "freezing" It is concluded that Brazilian Monetary Authorities should not adopt those core inflation measures as inflation target