货币政策为何及如何关注食品价格

食品价格是通货膨胀压力的灵敏反映指标，且由于食品部门供应价格弹性、存货缓冲能力、需求价格弹性和生产效率相对较低，产品同质化程度相对较高，食品价格的弹性明显高于非食品价格，加之在通货膨胀和经济周期过程中，食品部门具有需求顺周期和供给逆周期的特征，食品价格波动幅度往往远高于非食品价格，存在一定程度的超调。因此，文章建议货币政策应充分关注食品价格，同时适当提高对食品价格波幅的容忍程度。

Why and how monetary policy focus on food prices

Food price is a sensitive indicator to reflect the inflation pressure. Since the price elasticity of supply, inventory buffer, price elasticity of demand and productivity of the food sector are relatively low with a high degree of product homogeneity, the elasticity of food price is obviously higher than that of non-food price. Together with the features of demand pro-cyclicality and supply counter-cyclicality in the food sector during inflation and economic cycle, the degree of food price fluctuation is much higher than that of non-food price, with a certain degree of overshooting. In this regard, this article suggests that the monetary policy should closely watch food price while showing greater tolerance to food price fluctuation as appropriate.