Friday 14 June 2024

Causes of Inflation: demand-pull, cost-push and inflation expectations

Causes of inflation

The main causes of inflation can be grouped into three broad categories:

  1. demand-pull,
  2. cost-push, and
  3. inflation expectations.

As their names suggest, ‘demand-pull inflation’ is caused by developments on the demand side of the economy, while ‘cost-push inflation’ is caused by the effect of higher input costs on the supply side of the economy. Inflation can also result from ‘inflation expectations’ – that is, what households and businesses think will happen to prices in the future can influence actual prices in the future. These different causes of inflation are considered by the Reserve Bank when it analyses and forecasts inflation.[1]

Image showing the three main causes of inflation: demand-pull, cost-push and inflation expectations.


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