Food Price Inflation Rates in the Euro Zone: Distribution Dynamics and Convergence Analysis.

It is widely recognized that inflation as a monetary phenomenon is determined by money supply changes. In the short run, however, several factors may lead to inflation rate differentials among different regions in the same country or among different countries in a monetary union. This paper examines the mean reversion attitude of food price inflation rates in the Euro zone, borrowing the concepts and developments from the recent growth literature and using panel unit root tests. Additionally, in order to capture sufficiently the evolving distributional dynamics, nonparametric econometric methods are also implemented. Finally, the comovement of the inflation rates among different food subgroups is also explored. The data consist of monthly observations of the EU harmonized consumer price indices of food and three different food subgroups (meat, bread and cereals, and vegetables) for the 12 older member states of the Euro zone, covering the period from 1997 to 2010. The results do not fully support the hypothesis of the food price inflation rates convergence for the whole period under investigation. Mean reversion shows up in different time periods and in different food categories. Moreover, the analysis of distribution dynamics sheds light to different aspects of convergence and highlights processes like club formation and polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]