The use of robust estimators as measures of core inflation

This paper examines robust estimators of core inflation for Belgian historical CPI data, and for euro area Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices. Evidence of fat tails in the cross-sections of price changes is provided by traditional measures, as well as by a robust measure of the tail weights that is not vulnerable to the masking phenomenon. Trimmed means are considered in the first instance. We introduce a new estimator where the optimal trimming percentage is the lowest percentage for which the hypothesis of normality of the trimmed samples cannot be rejected on the basis of the Jarque-Bera... Mehr ...