The PNG Analyst

What is Inflation? According to the IMF inflation “is the rate of increase in prices over a given period of time”. Although inflation can refer to prices of specific products or services such as rice, petrol or airline tickets, it is typically referred to and discussed in public as a broad measure of the overall increase in prices that reflects the increase in the cost of living in a city, region or country. Inflation represents how much more expensive the goods and/or services on average have become over a certain period. Usually when the experts or government refer to inflation they talk about inflation from year to year, that is, how much prices increased in one year compared to the previous year. This is usually expressed as the percentage (%) increase in prices for a country as a whole. How is inflation measured? Inflation is commonly measured by regular periodic consumer price surveys, eg. every month or every 3 months, of a basket of goods and services that has been carefully s...