Dynamics of Oil Price Pass-Through into Iran’s Domestic Prices Index over Time

The economies of the world are always affected by the oil price, because oil is considered as the largest energy source of countries. As a result, oil price changes will have a main role in goods and services price changes. The main purpose of this paper is studying the dynamics of oil price pass-through into domestic Prices index in Iran over time. For this purpose, two models i.e. “Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL)”, and “State-Space” Models are used during the period of 1990 to 2017 with seasonal frequency. The results of the ARDL model show that the oil price pass-through into the prices index is positive and significant in the long run, while oil price pass-through into the consumer price index is insignificant in short run, but it is positive and significant into producer price index in short run. Also, the results show that after 1995 as a structural break point, the oil price pass-through into consumer price index has declined, but producer price index has increased after 2011. The results of the state-space model indicate that the oil price pass-through into the consumer and producer index is not same over time. So, the oil price pass through was higher and fluctuating during the 1995 to 1997, but after 2000, the pass through into the producer price index are a pretty mild and positive trend, and this pass through has happened at a higher level in comparison with the consumer price index. Therefore, in general, global oil price volatility has affected the inflation of Iran's economy as an oil exporting country, and its intensity depends on how oil revenues are managed within the country. As the role of establishing a Foreign Exchange Reserves in 2000 and the National Development Fund in 2011 is evident to control the intensity of fluctuations oil prices pass through into inflation. Therefore, the emphasis on the stabilization role of the National Development Fund in preventing the transfer of inflationary surges of oil price changes to inflation is one of the policy recommendations of this paper for economic planners and decision makers.