Inflation and Deflation – Going Steady

On August 11th, The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a global organization made up of 34 member countries with democratic governments and market economies, published its report on annual inflation rates for member countries. Globally, inflation remains muted with an annualized rate of 2.3 percent expected for 2017, up from 0.6% in 2016 and 1.1% in 2017.

Deflation, which is has been more of a concern in recent years, seems also to be less of a risk, although as the table below (from inflationdata.com) shows it was still a minor factor in Ireland and Israel for the year ending in June 2017.

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Inflation in the US, as reported by inflationdata.com, seems in line with the low global trend. Typically, January through May see generally higher rates of inflation, which trail off throughout the rest of the year and 2017 is following this pattern.

Kiplingers, in fact, expects total inflation in the US to come in at about 1.4% in 2017, below the 2016 estimate of 2.1%. Lower medical care inflation, which should be about 1.9% in 2017, down from 3.8% in 2016, explains most of this estimate for slower growth.