Economic Fundae - Inflation

Inflation in simple terms is the loss of purchasing power of a currency. If today 10kg of general items can be bought of 100 Rs, then after a year how much money will be required to buy the same amount of goods? Inflation gives an idea of that general increase in price of goods.

There are standard ways to measure inflation such as the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) and Consumer Price Index (CPI). WPI measures the increase in price of basket of goods at the wholesale level. It is measured weekly. CPI gives the measure of the cost of given basket of goods (Wheat, Pulse etc) and services which the consumer has to pay. CPI is always greater than WPI.

Although there are inherent problems with this measure which is largely attributed to the weights attached to the goods and services and also the changing quality which is very hard to quantify. This of course can have huge difference in the policy decisions. There can also be a cumulative wrong measurement due to these inherent problems in scientific methods in economics.

Now if we were to answer what an effect does it has on policy making and the other variables in macroeconomics, we need to understand a bit more of how the Monetary Policy and fiscal policy is taken.