Global convergence of inflation rates

Abstract

This research analyzes the convergence of the world’s inflation rates, spanning 98 countries during the 1970–2016 period. Compared to previous studies, this study’s contribution is its analysis of the convergence sequence of different countries from a nonlinear perspective and its examination of the factors influencing the convergence order. We find that most countries’ inflation rates tend to converge with one another, with the exceptions of Japan, Poland, Chile, Sweden, and Burundi. The results also show that the inflation levels of high-income countries converge faster to the mean value than those of low-income countries. We show that countries that have volatile inflation rates are more likely to converge earlier than other countries. The robust results of the econometric analysis show that countries with improving per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) levels and growing globalization levels are more prone to earlier convergence than countries with lower level per capita GDP values or lower globalization levels. The results demonstrate that most of the countries in the world conform to the law of one price, and the money illusion hypothesis is invalid in the long run.