FGV launches Inflation Portal

FGV’s Brazilian Institute of Economics (IBRE) launched the Inflation Portal on December 7. The new tool was designed to consolidate data from Brazil’s inflation indicators – as well as performance indexes –, in order to build understanding and access to this subject both among experts and lay persons.

According to Pedro Guilherme Costa Ferreira, IBRE researcher and one of the new portal’s developers, the wide range of features available in the dashboard can provide a broader overview of this particular subject. For the economist, the main highlight is the publication of the Triple-Filter Core Inflation (N-TF), a method developed by FGV’s researchers to calculate the least volatile core.

As the name already suggests, the calculation is made in three stages. The first one – already used in the market – is the trimmed mean, which excludes products and services with excessively high positive or negative monthly variations. According to Costa Ferreira, however, “this filter didn’t fix the seasonal issue; it still showed volatility”. That’s why a second filter was created to account for seasonal adjustment. The final stage covers the indicator’s assessment period – instead of considering the last 12 months, the N-TF is based on the quarterly moving average.

“Calculating the core based on the quarterly moving average makes it less dynamic, but also includes more solid variations. The triple-filter core gives us a more accurate reading of short-term inflation compared to the 12-month cumulative inflation. This will help the market and everyone else to follow the inflation trend without having to look back”, said the researcher.

Data from Brazilian price indexes will be updated on a weekly basis. Users can also find inflation data from the main capital cities of Brazil and other countries. The portal also shows the history of all main items of the basket of consumer goods, clearly revealing which group of goods or services affected prices in each month.