Centres Of Excellence

To focus on new and emerging areas of research and education, Centres of Excellence have been established within the Institute. These ‘virtual' centres draw on resources from its stakeholders, and interact with them to enhance core competencies

Read More >>

Faculty

Faculty members at IIMB generate knowledge through cutting-edge research in all functional areas of management that would benefit public and private sector companies, and government and society in general.

Read More >>

IIMB Management Review

Journal of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

IIM Bangalore offers Degree-Granting Programmes, a Diploma Programme, Certificate Programmes and Executive Education Programmes and specialised courses in areas such as entrepreneurship and public policy.

Read More >>

About IIMB

The Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) believes in building leaders through holistic, transformative and innovative education

Read More >>

Rising Food Prices and India’s Monetary Policy

Vivek Moorthy, Shrikant Kolhar
2011
Working Paper No
325
Body

It is increasingly being discussed whether the Reserve Bank of India should react to rising food prices, generally considered to be due to supply shocks, when overall inflation seems to be under control. This paper first provides evidence, based on the OPEC 1973 price hike, against the supply shock view, and then points to the low trend growth in agriculture as the main factor keeping India's food inflation high. It then presents a simple model of a two person (rich and poor), two commodity (food and non food) economy with rising food and falling nonfood prices. Simulation results show that GDP can go up while aggregate utility goes down. Simultaneously the GDP deflator (considered to be the general price level) falls relative to the consumer price index, a weighted average of the price index for the poor and rich. Accordingly it argues for a population weighted Consumer Price Index to be constructed and its inflation rate made the primary target of monetary policy, eschewing other inflation measures.

Key words
Food Prices,GDP deflator
IIMB_WP325.pdf (546.84 KB)

Rising Food Prices and India’s Monetary Policy

Author(s) Name: Vivek Moorthy, Shrikant Kolhar, 2011
Working Paper No : 325
Abstract:

It is increasingly being discussed whether the Reserve Bank of India should react to rising food prices, generally considered to be due to supply shocks, when overall inflation seems to be under control. This paper first provides evidence, based on the OPEC 1973 price hike, against the supply shock view, and then points to the low trend growth in agriculture as the main factor keeping India's food inflation high. It then presents a simple model of a two person (rich and poor), two commodity (food and non food) economy with rising food and falling nonfood prices. Simulation results show that GDP can go up while aggregate utility goes down. Simultaneously the GDP deflator (considered to be the general price level) falls relative to the consumer price index, a weighted average of the price index for the poor and rich. Accordingly it argues for a population weighted Consumer Price Index to be constructed and its inflation rate made the primary target of monetary policy, eschewing other inflation measures.

Keywords: Food Prices,GDP deflator
IIMB_WP325.pdf (546.84 KB)