The Determinants of Inflation in Vietnam, 2001–09

This paper employs a simple macroeconomic model of inflation to empirically investigate the determinants of CPI inflation for Vietnam over the period 2001 to 2009. Vietnam is chosen as our focus for this study because of the country’s recent history of high inflation since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 and the Adjustment of Price reforms in 1985. We are particularly interested in examining the role of the exchange rate in explaining inflation, and of the effect of supply side factors such as the prices of crude oil and rice. Using a range of time series estimation techniques, we find that inflation is persistent and that the money supply, oil prices and rice prices present the strongest influences on CPI inflation.