The wave of inflation that evolved after the pandemic suggests that increasing the quantity of money does not necessarily lead to economic prosperity. Typically, as the prices of some goods rise, the prices of other goods fall. However, the euro area faced a rapid general price increase. This paper examines the factors behind this growth in prices.
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.
On March 20th, the Lithuanian Free Market Institute with its unique program of youth debates, Freedom Talks, opened Global Money Week at the Bank of Lithuania. At the inaugural event school youth teams met in a tournament to debate “Do we need money?” and “Can we buy anything with money?”
In 2004 the Institute for Market Economics (IME) presented its first Alternative Budget. Each year since that we have suggested an annual budgetary frame with lower taxes, more effective spending, bold reforms, and lower state interference. At the beginning of 2023, Bulgaria will not have a state budget drafted by a regular government and voted on by a parliamentary majority.
The Liberalni Institute calculated that with an average wage of CZK 40,086, the total cost per employee is 63% higher, i.e. CZK 65,376. This is the second year of the Cost of an Employee project, which the Liberalni Institut publishes in cooperation with the Slovak think tank INESS and the German FNF Foundation. The aim of the project is to calculate the total cost of a job for different types of employees.
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.
While the state does need to find new revenues, there will not be any substantive debate on taxation over the next four months, new Finance Minister Annely Akkermann (Reform) says.
Every individual earns money for living somehow. The society agreed that the government is needed and this means we should pay money for their service, and we call it taxes. We may not like paying taxes, but we understand the need for the government to exist.
The current social package worth more than a billion euro has definitively confirmed that Slovak government is going kamikaze in the area of public finances. After all, the money is “lying on the pavement”.
The growing energy costs play an important role for the increase of the overall consumer price indices during the last couple months and threatens a maintenance of high inflation rates during the entire 2022.
