Inflation measures for population subgroups

In the first half of 2015, Italian inflation continued to remain at low level across distinct population subgroups defined according to the consumption expenditure level.

However, in the second quarter of the year weak signals of an inflation upturn emerged, when in particular the rates of change on annual basis of the consumer price indices of two of the households’ subgroups ceased to be in deflation as in the first quarter.

Specifically, in the second quarter of 2015, inflation rates, measured by Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for population subgroups, varied in a range between -0.2% of the first subgroup (i.e. the 20% of those with the lowest equivalent expenditure) and 0.3% of the last subgroup (the 20% of population with the highest equivalent expenditure). In the same period, headline inflation, as measured by HICP was 0.1%.

For the households with the lower level of expenditure, deflation became weaker (-0.2% as compared to -0.6% in the first quarter of the year). This dynamics was mainly due to the enduring (even though weakened) tendency of Energy prices to decline, whose weight on the budget of the households with the lowest level of expenditure is more than twice with respect to the households with the highest level of expenditure.

Concerning the last population subgroup, in the second quarter of 2015 inflation rates showed an increase to 0.3% from 0.2% of the previous quarter, as a result, mainly, of the evolution of the prices of Non-energy industrial goods and of Services related to recreation, including repairs and personal care.

In more details, in the second quarter 2015, for households with lower spending power the higher negative contribution to the inflation rate derived from the prices of Energy (-0.801 percentage points), and, to a lesser extent, from the prices of Services related to housing (-0.067 percentage points). The greater positive contributions arise from the prices of Food (0.280 and 0.199 percentage points for unprocessed and processed food, respectively) and Non-energy industrial goods (0.191 percentage points).

Next release: January 2016