ABSTRACT

This chapter describes and analyses various aspects of inflation in Poland, focusing mainly on the period 1971-82. It is confined to inflation in the consumer goods market. Shortages and price rises in the producer goods market are also important, and have consequences for the consumer goods market, but will not be analysed here. As a starting point, the chapter begins with a description and analysis of open (official) inflation in Poland. It is well-known that in CPEs open price increases do not fully capture the complex nature of inflation. Hence a discussion of certain aspects of hidden and repressed inflation is necessary for a good understanding of the nature of inflation in CPEs in general and in Poland in particular. The chapter will further describe the relationship between inflation and the economic collapse of 1980-2, followed by a brief discussion of the causes of inflation, and a conclusion.