May 24, 2011
May 24, 2011
Bolivia has released its Consumer Price Index for April (CPI), showing a stabilization of prices. Year-over-year inflation has fallen to 11%, from 11.1% in March. Much of the recent run-up in prices has been concentrated in the most volatile sectors: food and energy. Monetary and fiscal policy designed to counter inflation has limited effect on food and energy prices, because they are mostly a result of rising world prices, outside of the control of local authorities. Excluding these two categories gives us core inflation, which is less volatile and more relevant to economic policymaking. Core inflation for April was 5.9%, a little over half of the headline inflation level.
Note: Data from before and after March 2008 are not strictly comparable because of a methodology change.
For more information, see our latest Latin America Data Byte.
