Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Economics and Political Science - Department of Economics

Core inflation measurement has a critical role in sustaining accountability and credibility of monetary policy, in addition to formulating a policy aimed at controlling inflation. Hence, the main objectives of this study are to investigate alternative measures of core inflation for Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) in the aim of having a better signal for medium-term inflation and emphasize the importance of using multiple core inflation measures, taking into consideration the general conditions of measurement which will be a useful tool for (CBE) in tracking trend inflation and predict future inflation accurately. In that context, the methodology of research is based on three approaches; Analytical, comparative as well as statistical. Thus, the study covers three main chapters; the first chapter investigates the approaches of core inflation measurement and its importance, the second chapter emphasizes the importance of using multiple core inflation measures and the methodologies of core CPI constructed by central bank of Philippines, Brazil, Turkey and Poland and the third chapter clarifies Egypt's inflation measurement and developments of annual inflation rates during period between 2005 and 2015. In addition, it provides a descriptive and statistical analysis of Egypt's CPI data and the general trend of monthly headline and CBE's core CPI during period between 2010 and 2015. Finally, the results of study affirmed that CBE should measure core inflation by more than one measure besides to the current permanent exclusion-based measure of core inflation in order to have a better signal for medium-term inflation, in addition the study also asserted on the accuracy of CPI's data for having accurate measures of inflation rates and hence, a better conduct of credible and accountable decisions of monetary policy

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