The Asymmetric Impact of Oil Price Dynamics on Inflation in Brazil

Abstract

This study investigates whether oil price changes have asymmetric pass-through effects on inflation using Brazilian quarterly data from the first quarter of 2000Q1 through 2021Q4. It applies a nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) model that can simultaneously decompose the price of oil into its partial sum of positive and negative components to account for both the short-run and long-run asymmetric behaviour of inflation. The empirical findings reveal that the pass-through of the oil price to inflation from the short to the long term has a nonlinear or asymmetric effect. It concludes that the monetary authority should consider the asymmetric effects of the inflation-oil price nexus.