This paper uses the Breitung and Candelon (2006) causality test to examine the effect of global oil and food price changes on the inflation in Morocco over the period from 1998Q1 to 2018Q1. The results show significant transmission from oil and food prices to domestic inflation. Specifically, the food prices are shown more important than oil prices in explaining inflation in the short-run, which reflects the high weight of food in the consumption basket. However, the effect of oil prices on inflation is much more persistent than the effect of food prices. Furthermore, the impact of commodity price shocks on inflation exhibits asymmetries. The oil price hikes affect more weakly the inflation than oil price decreases, whereas the food price increases are more transmitted to inflation than food price decreases. Our findings may provide useful information to researchers and policymakers in formulating more appropriate monetary policy.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.