Research report 2022 - Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods
What Do We Mean by „Inflation”?
Authors
Martin F. Hellwig
Departments
Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung von Gemeinschaftsgütern, Bonn
Summary
The essay criticizes the idea that the word “inflation” refers to a single phenomenon that is accessible to theorizing. It stresses the need to distinguish between price adjustments induced by one-time changes in underlying economic data and inflation processes based on feedback mechanisms between market developments and public policy, fiscal and monetary. Developments in 2021 and 2022 reflect supply side effects. The policy challenge is to avoid generating a self-sustaining inflationary dynamic.