When underlying inflation in Australia was rising, so too were equivalent measures of underlying inflation in the United States, as were exclusion-based measures of core inflation in most Asian countries.5 Similarly, measures of underlying inflation fell almost everywhere in the aftermath of the financial crisis, although there has been more dispersion recently.
These common movements reflect the correlation in the business cycle across countries, as well as the flow-on effects of the large changes in global commodity prices to the prices of a wide range of final goods and services. 5  Trimmed mean measures of underlying inflation are not available for most countries in Asia.