Decomposing brazilian inflation into supply and demand driven fluctuations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1590/1980-53575638lcmrKeywords:
Inflation decomposition, Demand-driven inflation, Supply-driven inflation, New Keynesian Phillips curve, Brazilian economic crisis, Post-pandemic inflationAbstract
Are inflationary cycles in Brazil supply- or demand-driven? Identifying each inflation component and understanding its properties is central to understanding economic fluctuations and guiding monetary policy. We construct a new monthly dataset that maps disaggregated IPCA inflation categories to corresponding quantity indicators, which we use to decompose inflation into demand- and supply-driven components based on a bivariate VAR for each category. We find that demand-driven inflation is two to three times more strongly related to the output gap than headline inflation and explains inflation inertia. Supply-driven inflation is largely transitory and weakly negatively associated with the output gap. The decomposition points to a prominent role for supply-driven forces in the 2015 inflationary episode and almost absent demand pressures in the 2016–17 disinflation. Demand pressures emerged early in the post-pandemic surge, with supply pressures intensifying from 2021 onward.
Downloads
References
Akarsu, O. and E. Aktuğ (2025). Decomposing supply- and demand-driven inflation in Turkey. Empirical Economics 69 (2), 1047–1077.
Areosa, W. D. and M. Medeiros (2007). Inflation dynamics in brazil: The case of a small open economy. Brazilian Review of Econometrics 27, 131–166.
Beckers, B., J. Hambur, and T. Williams (2023). Estimating the relative contributions of supply and demand drivers to inflation in Australia. Reserve Bank of Australia–Quarterly Bulletin, 38–47.
Clarida, R., J. Galí, and M. Gertler (1999). The science of monetary policy: A new keynesian perspective. Journal of Economic Literature 37 (4), 1661–1707.
Coibion, O., Y. Gorodnichenko, and M. Ulate (2019). Is inflation just around the corner? the phillips curve and global inflationary pressures. AEA Papers and Proceedings 109, 465–69.
Correa, A. d. S. and A. Minella (2010). Nonlinear mechanisms of the exchange rate pass-through: a phillips curve model with threshold for brazil. Revista Brasileira de Economia 64.
Divino, J. A. and A. G. da Silva (2024). Cash transfers and the phillips curve: The case of brazil during the pandemic. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics 71, 680–688.
Dudson, L. (2024, June). Decomposing supply and demand driven retail inflation in New Zealand. Analytical note, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
Fasolo, A. M. and M. S. Portugal (2004). Imperfect rationality and inflationary inertia: a new estimation of the phillips curve for brazil. Estudos Econômicos (São Paulo) 34.
Firat, M. and O. Hao (2023). Demand vs. supply decomposition of inflation: Cross-country evidence with applications. IMF Working Papers 2023/205, International Monetary Fund.
Gonçalves, E. and G. Koester (2022). The role of demand and supply in underlying inflation – decomposing HICPX inflation into components. In ECB Economic Bulletin, Issue 7/2022 – Boxes. European Central Bank.
Machado, V. d. G. and M. S. Portugal (2014). Phillips curve in brazil: an unobserved components approach. Estudos Econômicos (São Paulo) 44.
Medeiros, G. B.; Portugal, M. S.; Aragón, E. K. S. B. (2017) Instabilidades na Curva de Phillips Novo-Keynesiana: um estudo empírico para o Brasil, Pesquisa e Planejamento Econômico, vol. 47(1), pp. 45-76
Punongbayan, Jan Carlo B. (2025). Supply and demand components of philippine inflation, 2001-2024. Applied Economics Letters, 1–7.
Schwartzman, F. F. (2006). Estimativa de curva de phillips para o brasil com preços desagregados. Economia Aplicada 10.
Shapiro, A. H. (2024). Decomposing supply- and demand-driven inflation. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Leonardo França Costa, Marcel Bertini Ribeiro

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
By submitting an article, the author authorizes its publication and attests that it has not been submitted to any other journal. The original article is considered final. Articles selected for publication are proofread for grammatical and orthographic errors. The journal does not pay rights for published articles. The Institute of Economic Research from the School of Economics, Business and Accounting of the University of São Paulo (Instituto de Pesquisas Econômicas da Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade da Universidade de São Paulo) owns the journal's copyright.
Atualizado em 14/08/2025