INFLATION
Measures
Types
Causes
Effects
What is inflation?
Inflation measures how much more expensive a set of goods and services
has become over a certain period, usually a year
Prices of goods and services consumed by consumers and the share of
each good or service in the household budget affects consumers’ cost of
living
Conducting household
surveys
Ceyda Öner, IMF
Identification of a basket of
commonly purchased items
Tracking cost of purchasing this
basket over time
CPI
Consumer price index (CPI)
CPI = cost of basket at a given time expressed relative to a base year is the
Consumer price inflation
= percentage change in the CPI over a certain period is,
= the most widely used measure of inflation
Example:
base year, CPI is 100, current CPI is 110
-> inflation is 10 percent over the period
Other indexes: (producer PI, commodity PI, …)
CPIt CPIt 1
Rate of inflation: r *100%
CPIt 1
Types of Inflation
Open inflation
if economic imbalance is accompanied with rising price level.
Suppressed inflation
if state authorities damp or even stop the rise of price level by
administrative means. But, by this way causes of inflation cannot be
removed. Such situation is followed by existence of scarce
commodities, shadow economy etc.
Hidden inflation
if official price indexes do not reflect the price of goods and services
produced by shadow economy.
Types of inflation (quantitative
perspective)
Type R [%]
Creeping < 10 beneficial to sets expectations that prices will
economic continue to rise -> increased
growth demand and drives economic
expansion
Galloping 10 – 100 economy Money loses value quickly, foreign
becomes investors avoid country
unstable
Hyperinflation > 100 out of control prices increase rapidly as a
currency loses its value, barter
Deflation <0 bad for why would you spend your crown
economy today when the expectation is that
it could buy effectively more stuff
tomorrow? -> decreases demand
Nationalization of
farms and
companies
Experienced managers
replaced by loyal politicians
Extensive
decrease of No foreign
productivity investments, lack
of food
Increase of black market,
high unemployment
Fall of zimb. dollar (2009),
people allowed to use
(US dollar was preferred)
Causes of Inflation
Demand-pull inflation
Arises when aggregate demand in an economy outpaces aggregate
supply
It involves inflation rising as real gross domestic product rises and
unemployment falls. This is commonly described as "too much money
chasing too few goods".
Possible causes of demand-pull inflation:
Excessive investment expenditures
Excessive growth of consumption expenditures
Low-cost loans
Tax cutting
Augmentation of government expenditures
Causes of Inflation
Cost-push inflation (or supply-shock inflation)
is a type of inflation caused by large increases in the cost of important
goods or services where no suitable alternative is available.
A situation that has been often cited of this was the oil crisis of the
1970s, which some economists see as a major cause of the inflation
experienced in the Western world in that decade.
Possible causes of cost-push inflation:
Imperfect competition
Rising wages
Political incidents (like oil crises)
Causes of Inflation
Built-in inflation (or Anticipated inflation)
induced by adaptive expectations, often linked to the "price/wage
spiral“
it involves workers trying to keep their wages up with prices and
then employers passing higher costs on to consumers as higher
prices as part of a "vicious circle.“
Built-in inflation reflects events in the past, and so might be seen
as hangover inflation.
Effects of Inflation
Redistribution effect of inflation
Inflation affects recipients of fixed income firstly (nominal
incomes remain same but the real value of income drop)
Inflation affects the purchasing power of wages that don’t follow
the rise of prices
Inflation causes diminishing value of loans and savings
Social impact of inflation
Socially poor persons suffer from inflation more then rich
Effects of Inflation
Impact on economy balance
Fall of real product bellow potential product
Changes in the structure of consumption (consumers are buying
cheaper goods)
In case of fixed currency exchange rate higher exports are incited
Inflation deforms prices
Inflation causes higher costs and makes economy less efficient
Creeping and anticipated inflation has positive effect on economy and
stimulates economic growth
High inflation and not anticipated inflation signalize serious problems in
economy.
Stopping the inflation
There are a number of methods which have been suggested to stop
inflation.
Managing the wages and prices – determined by state income policy
(authority can set wages ceiling)
Stimulating market competition – e.g. antimonopoly regulations
Fiscal and monetary policy – e.g. central banks can affect inflation to a
significant extent through setting interest rates
Switch to a stable currency
