Emmanuel Owusu

Time-series Analysis of Inflation Rates: Arima Modeling and Forecasting of Ghana's Inflation Rates Emmanuel Owusu

Individual households, managers of business entities and planners of economies monitor the rates of change in prices, that is inflation, either directly or indirectly. A fast increasing inflation rate has the potential of reducing amounts of goods and services that households can afford, reducing the sales and profits of companies, and causing unemployment and reduction in tax revenue for governments, ceteris paribus. Some rental rates and wages are indexed to future inflation rates thus making it imperative that efficient forecasts of inflation be available for these purposes. This book analyzes the behavior of Ghana's inflation rates as measured by Consumer Price Index (CPI) and forecast future CPIs using ARIMA models, with the help of Box-Jenkins methodology. The analysis should help shed some light on past and future behavior of Ghana's inflation rates. This book also provides a systematic application of many concepts and techniques in time-series analysis and ARIMA forecasting. This book should be useful to students who are into time-series analysis. Professionals who make use of time-series data and do forecasting should find this book useful as well.