inflation

The ongoing election campaign has become an opportunity for political parties to present populist solutions to problems that are not always real. One theme are the seemingly high mortgage rates. In reality, however, rates are much lower than the current and projected increase in prices and wages, which means that the burden on debtors would decrease even if they would not pay their instalments and the interest would increase their debt.

In this episode, we talk about Turkey on the eve of the elections in the context of the earthquake and reconstruction, hyperinflation and its impact on the economy and society, and political and institutional instability.

In light of record-high price rises, inflation is a term that comes up a lot. For a long period of time, it had a slightly different meaning. Inflation was primarily used to describe a rapid increase in the quantity of money. It is not difficult to understand the link between money and prices.

A slight decrease in inflation measured by the CPI (Consumer Price Index) at the end of 2022 should be treated with great caution because it is accompanied by an increase in core inflation, which is calculated by excluding food and energy prices from the market basket.

Eszter Nova, lecturer at Cevro Institute in Prague and political commentator, who runs a blog Meanwhile in Budapest, wrote a publication Outlook for Hungary 2023 that further unfolds the above-mentioned developments of the Hungarian political landscape and its possible impacts on 2023.

Ukraine has introduced numerous reforms between 2014-2019, which support macro-financial sustainability of the country. As a result, even during COVID-19, Ukraine went stronger with debt-to-GDP ratio at about 50%, sound banking system, improved corporate governance and higher openness and transparency. This helped Ukraine to remain resilient since the beginning of full-scale invasion by Russia.

Along with the increase of inflation in Poland and in the whole world, the discussion about its causes intensifies. There are many voices that the main reason is an external supply shock - the prices of energy and food. It is useful, in the analysis, to distinguish within CPI inflation, a core inflation and the rest of it. Core inflation is an inflation rate that is devoid of the most unstable components such as food and energy prices.

In this article we look at the connection between industrial and consumer prices in Bulgaria in an attempt to determine to what extent the industrial price index can be used to forecast the future dynamics of consumer inflation.

The solutions to combat inflation that Danuše Nerudová proposes are not good ones. A price cap on energy can lead to nothing but shortages. Financially incentivizing households and industry to reduce energy consumption is useless in a world of market prices.

In times of galloping inflation, the Polish government creates another inflation impulse - the \"Coal allowance\", the payment of which is expected to cost as much as PLN 11.5 billion.