Price-Level-Convergence of Food Baskets in Mexican Cities: Inflation-Targeting and PPP

• Autores: Alfonso Mendoza Velázquez, Alejandro Rondero García
• Localización: Paradigma económico, ISSN 2007-3067, Año 13, Nº. 2, 2021, págs. 131-164
• Idioma: español
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• Resumen

  • We investigate relative price convergence under Inflation Targeting in Mexico from January 2010 to March 2018. A panel of 46 rural and urban cities shows half-lives ranging from 0.70 to 3.10 months. We find an increase in the speed of convergence during the period of U.S. monetary normalization. We also find a positive response of price variation to measures of distance and a slower speed of adjustment between cities of greater distance, suggesting that transportation costs are not necessarily a barrier to arbitrage opportunities. While univariate tests suggest that not all cities converge to the same long-run trend, panel unit root tests accounting for cross-sectional dependence favor the relative convergence of food prices. Beta convergence estimates suggest disparities in the cost of food baskets.