After an increase in inflation in 2020,  consumer price inflation in India remained range bound in 2021 compared to many Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs) and advanced economies.
In 2020-21, Kerala ranked third lowest in CPI inflation (4.94%) after Rajasthan (3.48%) and Punjab (4.26%). Kerala successfully managed to control prices during the pandemic.
The price trends were reversed in many states in the first two quarters of 2022-23 due to a rise in global inflation contributed by a rise in oil prices, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the waning of fiscal stimulus measures.
Kerala's consumer prices showed an upward trend in 2022-23 after a reduction for two consecutive years. However, in Q1 and Q2 of 2022-23, Kerala recorded the lowest consumer inflation (5.41%) after Goa (3.18%), followed by Karnataka (5.83%) and Tamil Nadu (5.76%).
Overall, it is evident that Kerala has been an exemplary state in curtaining prices during the pandemic, largely due to in-kind' transfers. On the other hand, states that resorted to cash transfers (for e.g. Telangana and Andhra Pradesh) experienced higher inflation.
In 2020-21, food inflation accounted for 54 per cent of total inflation at the national level, while in Kerala, it contributed to 40 per cent. The relative share of food inflation declined in 2021-22 across all the states.

Introduction
As economies across the globe started reviving in 2022 after the COVID-19 crisis that continued almost for two years, rising global inflation to multidecade highs in many advanced countries has emerged as a fresh challenge (IMF, 2022). This could be partly attributed to Covid-19-related stimulus measures in the form of increased social assistance programs in developed and emerging markets, along with pent-up demand. At the same time, the disruption of global supply chains due to physical restrictions and rising freight costs leading to increased input prices across the globe stoked global inflation during 2021 (Economic Survey, 2022). Food price inflation has been the main driver of inflation as prices of cereals increased due to the War in Ukraine and other export restrictions in several countries.
Consumer prices, especially in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe, have experienced the highest level of inflation in the last four decades (around 8-9%). Although with lesser intensity, in emerging market and developing economies, including India witnessed soaring prices (Figure 1). After an increase in 2020, in comparison to many Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs) and advanced economies, consumer price inflation in India remained range bound in recent months, touching 4.9 per cent in November 2021 and 5.6 per cent in December 2021, owing to the proactive steps taken by the Government for effective supply management (Economic Survey 2022). Though prices in India are expected to rise from 5.9 per cent in 2021 to 6.9 per cent in 2022, it is much lower than other EMDEs and European Union (Figure 1). The data monthly CPI data published by MOSPI shows that consumer prices show a downward trend in Q2:2022-23. In this context, this study analyses the price trends in Kerala compared to other major Indian states. Secondly, we analyse the major drivers of inflation across states and the emerging trends therein.

For the empirical analysis, we use the monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) data published by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MOSPI) from April 2019-20 to September 2022. The monthly data has been averaged to get annual data. Since previous articles (Kakarlapudi and Renjith, 2020; Renjith and Kakarlapudi, 2021) compared the price trends of the pre-pandemic period with the pandemic period, this article compares pandemic and post-pandemic trends. For the comparison, our analysis uses twenty major states contributing to more than 90 per cent of the total GDP. The remainder of the paper is organised as follows. Section 2 discusses the price trends from 2020-21 onwards from a comparative perspective. Section 3 presents the major drivers of the observed trends by analysing the relative contribution of different components of inflation. The final section offers concluding observations.

Price trends during and after COVID-19
The average consumer price inflation in India showed a southward trend from 2013-14 to 2019-20. As many previous studies have already reported, the CPI inflation increased from 4.8 per cent in 2019-20 to 6.2 per cent in 2020-21 due to COVID-19-induced restrictions affecting demand and supply. At the domestic level, two opposing forces were at play. There was a reduction in household demand owing to the loss of income and lower economic activity. At the same time, disruption in domestic supply chains due to restrictions on the movement of goods and services affected supply. The CPI inflation, however, varied across major Indian states due to differences in the magnitude of the Covid-19 crisis and the policy response in the form of stimulus measures. In 2020-21, Kerala ranked third lowest in CPI inflation (4.94%) after Rajasthan (3.48%) and Punjab (4.26%) (Table-1). The previous research showed that Kerala had higher than the national average inflation in 2019-20 and it is the only South Indian state to have reversed price trends during the pandemic (Kakarlapudi and Renjith, 2020).
The CPI inflation was higher than the national average in ten out of twenty states, with Tripura (8.01%), Andhra Pradesh (7.98%) and West Bengal (7.94%) among the top in 2020-21. As the lockdown restrictions eased and economic activity resumed, the CPI inflation declined in 2021-22. At the national level, it declined from 6.21 per cent to 5.57 per cent. The prices in Kerala declined further to 3.96 percent and ramined as the state with low inflation. It is important to note that among the states with low inflation, only Kerala continued its position in 2021-22 as the state with the third lowest inflation. Table 1 indicates that fourteen out of twenty states showed a deceleration in prices. The highest price decline was observed in Tripura (4.2%), followed by Chhattisgarh (3.28%), Odisha (3.23%) and Andhra Pradesh (2.12%). Among the six states which showed an increase in prices, Rajasthan (1.54%), Haryana (1.42%) and Karnataka (0.87%) are the top three. In terms of the level of inflation in 2021-22, Telangana (7.09%), Haryana (6.4%) and Madhya Pradesh (6.1%) are among the top three with higher inflation.
The price trends were reversed in many states in the first two quarters of 2022-23 due to a rise in global inflation contributed by a rise in oil prices, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the waning of fiscal stimulus measures. The imported inflation has put pressure on domestic input prices, thereby pushing consumer prices. India, for the first time, exceeded the inflation targeting range (bound 4 +/- 2 per cent) for six consecutive months from January 2022 since adopting the inflation targeting regime in October 2016 . Many states have shown an increase in consumer inflation in the first two quarters of 2022-23 compared to the previous year. We found that only three states (Goa, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu) have shown a price deceleration in 2022-23 compared to 2021-22. Notably, 10 states have shown more than two percentage points increase in 2022-23. The highest price rise was observed in Odisha (3.28%), Rajasthan and Assam (2.46%), and West Bengal (2.43%). Kerala's consumer prices showed an upward trend in 2022-23 after a reduction for two consecutive years. However, it is important to note that Kerala's price (1.45 percentage points) is marginally lower than all of India's (1.59 percentage points). In terms of the level of inflation in Q1 and Q2 of 2022-23, Kerala records the lowest consumer inflation (5.41%) after Goa (3.18%), followed by Karnataka (5.83%) and Tamil Nadu (5.76%). On the other hand, Telangana, Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Andhra Pradesh recorded more than 8 per cent inflation during the same period.