President Joe Biden often complains about "shrinkflation." Before the Super Bowl, he aired an ad arguing that some companies were sneakily raising prices by reducing the quantity or weight of products in a package.
"progressive Democrats want voters to think that the recent inflation was driven by greedy"
Sad but true.
And conservatives want them to think it is caused by federal spending (not even "deficits" because the are no willing to raise taxes to reduce deficits).
Also sad but true.
Milton Friedman got it right decades ago, inflation (and deflation and unemployment of labor and other resources) is a monetary phenomenon. Whether it is too much or too little inflation is the Fed's responsibility
Investigation of "shrinkflation" may contribute to consumer's _perceptions_ of inflation and so are worth the effort, but the breathless refutation that is does not _cause_ inflation is unworthy of a site that wants to be taken seriously about economics.
"progressive Democrats want voters to think that the recent inflation was driven by greedy"
Sad but true.
And conservatives want them to think it is caused by federal spending (not even "deficits" because the are no willing to raise taxes to reduce deficits).
Also sad but true.
Milton Friedman got it right decades ago, inflation (and deflation and unemployment of labor and other resources) is a monetary phenomenon. Whether it is too much or too little inflation is the Fed's responsibility
Investigation of "shrinkflation" may contribute to consumer's _perceptions_ of inflation and so are worth the effort, but the breathless refutation that is does not _cause_ inflation is unworthy of a site that wants to be taken seriously about economics.
"This data shows that shrinkflation hasn't significantly contributed to recent inflation,"
??? What data could? The Fed causes inflation (sometimes for good reasons), not firms raising the relative price of their outputs!
So, it's just unfalsifiable? And isn't the argument just that companies don't respond to broad economic conditions through this channel in particular?