Let’s inflate like it’s 1989
As Marketplace celebrates its 25th birthday this year, we are looking at the weird, delightful and destructive ways that prices have changed during that quarter century.
For instance, I noticed that the real price of electricity is essentially the same as it was in 1989, adjusted for inflation. In fact, electricity costs the same as it did in 1960, when I was born, adjusting for inflation. Prescription drugs, however, are a different story. The examples we’re looking at for the Marketplace Inflation Calculator all have a unique story about how prices have changed since our show got started 25 years ago.
But before our series gets to those, let’s get a snapshot on what inflation is, exactly.
Greg Mankiw is chairman of the economics department at Harvard, and if his name sounds familiar it might be because it’s on the front of your macroeconomics textbook from college.
Click the media player above to hear Dr. Greg Mankiw in conversation with Marketplace Morning Report host David Brancaccio.
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