The consumer price index is a cost-of-living index and measures the development of the living standard of households, but is sometimes, in tandem with other indicators, also used to characterise the cyclical phase of the economy. Here, caution is indicated.

The institutional framework of the wage formation process plays an important role in the adjustment of the economy to supply shocks. One important aspect of these institutional arrangements is the sequence of wage settlements: A concentration of wage bargaining in a short period is more apt to...

Austria's accession to the European Union in 1995 has focused the attention of the public on the relatively high level of consumer prices, with West Germany serving as the main standard of comparison. A price survey conducted by the Chamber of Labor in Vienna allows a detailed comparison of...

Since the middle of 1988 inflation accelerated in most OECD economies. The sharp reaction of monetary authorities in the U. S. and in other countries which suffered from a high rate of inflation, such as the U. K., Canada, Australia, and Sweden, depressed economic growth. The slowdown in...

Since the 1960s, several countries have adopted incomes policies to control inflation that was interpreted as the result of a distributional struggle between business and labour unions. This theoretical framework, termed the "battle of the mark-ups", has also formed the basis for estimating...