Research Discussion Paper – RDP 9810 The Distribution and Measurement of Inflation

Contents

• Introduction
• Behaviour of Price Changes
• Measuring Core Inflation
• Behaviour of the Statistical Core Inflation Series
• Conclusion
• Appendix A: Derivation of the Weights
• Appendix B: Component Frequency in the Distribution Tails
• Appendix C: Example of the Calculation of Trimmed Means
• References

I am grateful to Jacqui Dwyer and David Gruen for their helpful comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank Ashley Lester for his assistance. The responsibility for any remaining errors, of course, lies with the author. The views in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Reserve Bank of Australia.