Macroeconomic Insights: Asia-Pacific Tries to Contain the Oil Shock

Across the Asia-Pacific, policymakers are throwing subsidies, tax cuts, reserve releases, and pricing controls at rising fuel costs in an attempt to delay or smooth an external energy shock from becoming a broader inflation problem (Figure 1). But that strategy is...
It’s five to eleven

It’s five to eleven

Whenever I travel somewhere, I like to read books about the place I’m visiting. It helps in way to provide some context for me. Over the years I’ve been to Portugal many times, and I’ve read numerous books about the country, ranging from José...

Macroeconomic Insights: LATAM Fights an Oil Shock

In an earlier post, we explored the lagged correlations between Brent crude oil price changes and CPI  (Figure 1). Here, we see that for many LATAM countries pass-through is weaker and relatively slower than countries like the U.S. and South Korea. Figure 1   The...

Macroeconomics Insights: Oil Prices Up, Will Food Prices Follow?

Over the past three weeks, the escalation of conflict in the Middle East has coincided with a clear increase in Brent crude prices, reinforcing the expectation of near-term upward pressure on CPI through the energy channel. However, focusing solely on oil overlooks...