The Rs.200 note. Whatever happened to it? (Pic by PVGM)Seen any 50 cents recently? (coins, not the rapper) I haven’t either. They probably don’t mint it anymore. If they did, that would be a subsidy for the guys who mint coins because the metal require…

Ajay Shah has yet another article on India’s inflation. Here’s an important one-liner,Professional economists agree with professional politicians on the importance of low inflation.I think that sums up the case for inflation targeting.I have previously…

Apparently the German government is doing Zimbabweans a favor by stopping the Munich-based company which provides the ‘high quality’ paper for the Zimbabwean central bank to print it’s bank notes which helps create the countries’ million percent infla…

Unlike his Sri Lankan counterpart (who, in his defence doesn’t have a clue about these things) the finance minister of Pakistan, Sayed Naveed Qamar, has admited that government is responsible for inflation in that country, which stands about an “all ti…

A few days ago Ajay Shah, of whom I refer to a lot on this blog, has yet another excellent piece on inflation. Given his experience in Indian monetary policy, I asked him what he thought of high inflation in Sri Lanka and repeated claims by the Central…

Ajay Shah points me to this article on this economist article on Inflation on emerging economies, arguing it bare resembles to the great inflation of developed countries in the 1970s. With inflation of about 25% in Sri Lanka and with the Central Bank …

1.15 As Monetary Authorities, we have been humbled and have taken heart in the realization that some leading Central Banks, including those in the USA and the UK, are now not just talking of, but also actually implementing flexible and pragmatic centra…

As you probably know, the world’s food prices are soaring. So far I’ve come across two basic explanations which I find reasonable for the hike in food and commodity prices.Increased demand, constrained supply.This one is straight from your basic Econ …

Mises Institute blog recently had an interesting piece by Henry Hazlitt on “everything you need to know about inflation”. Here’s a key excerpt:The word “inflation” originally applied solely to the quantity of money. It meant that the volume of money wa…

(Starving Billionaires in Zimbabwe)With the rate of inflation at 100,000% that’s the state of affairs in Zimbabwe. Recently, the Zimbabwean reserve bank put out a $50 Million currency note. I wonder if the Zimbabwean central bankers are pushing “cost-…

(Starving Billionaires in Zimbabwe)With the rate of inflation at 100,000% that’s the state of affairs in Zimbabwe. Recently, the Zimbabwean reserve bank put out a $50 Million currency note. I wonder if the Zimbabwean central bankers are pushing “cost-…

The theory of oil-induced inflationFor the Background of this post, do read my last one. This post is a result of the many frustrating times I spent listening government politicians, the media, and most other people attributing the causes of inflation …

When I was growing up, this idea that ‘our country was poor’ puzzled me. How can we be poor I thought, the government print the money don’t they? So how can they have all the money and still be poor? After days of thinking over this, I came to the con…

Greg Mankiw’s 10 principles of economics, The Rap Version :What can I say, just Awesome. I don’t know about #7, but WTF. For anyone feeling really bored, here’s the original version:People face tradeoffsThe cost of something is what you give up to get …

This is what a Sri Lankan Government official had to say about not including alcohol and tobacco from the new consumer price index:Sri Lanka’s statistics officials said alcohol and tobacco had been dropped from the index because of a government policy …

This is what a Sri Lankan Government official had to say about not including alcohol and tobacco from the new consumer price index:Sri Lanka’s statistics officials said alcohol and tobacco had been dropped from the index because of a government policy …