When financial experts talk about inflation, they normally refer to CPI inflation – that is, the year-on-year increase (or decrease, when it’s deflation) in the Consumer Price Index. The index measures the costs of goods and services for consumers, and it is determined monthly by Statistics SA according to a methodology that is widely used by countries around the world to track their inflation rates.
It’s worth exploring, because, as we shall see, the CPI rate, which forms the basis of many economic
