Talk:Deflation

deflation is not negative inflation

handbook on international financial terms, moles & terry 1997 - (i) A fall in the level of economic activity in a country. Lower levels of economic activity as seen in such things as lower rates of increase in wages and prices.. (ii) The adjustment of an economic variable.. So the term relates to economic growth, or using a deflator to map nominal to real. It is not "negative price inflation". 2A02:1210:66D5:B600:6048:126B:76E4:D4B3 (talk) 15:46, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Inexplicably perhaps, Moles & Terry are simply wrong. I confirmed that that is what the public summary says, but the correct term corresponding to that definition would be "recession". "Deflation" is the antonym of "inflation" and refers to a change in the real value of the monetary unit of account, that is the value in terms of some broad, representative set of purchasable goods and services. BruceW07 (talk) 09:47, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

Hyperdeflation

• https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hyperdeflation.asp
• https://www.supermoney.com/encyclopedia/hyper-deflation

Kenixkil (talk) 23:05, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Deflation in Historical contexts

Because of the historical content, a clear exposition of how deflation relates to historical monetary regimes where the unit of account was anchored to a quantity of some commodity, often a specific precious-metal coin or coins, is needed. I took a first tiny step in this direction by specifically adding "unit of account" to the initial definition of the term.

The counterpoint is outlining how deflation relates to a pure fiat system actively managed by a central bank.

I am going to work on introducing better exposition of these points with integration into existing Wikipedia first. Improving the quality of supporting references should follow. BruceW07 (talk) 14:07, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

You should do that in the opposite direction: (find good references, read the references, than summarize them with statements in the article) Please see WP:BACKWARDS. ---Avatar317^(talk) 22:09, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

I appreciate what you are saying, but understand that I am not trying to write a new article. I am trying to rescue what has evolved into a badly fractured article, while continuing to respect and incorporate previous contributions. I am working "backwards" from the article as it exists. That is hard. BruceW07 (talk) 20:47, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

"the lead is supposed to summarize the article and that is getting too detailed for the lead."

Most of the article is taken up with the topics of historical deflations and the relation to financial crises. The motivation for that allocation of attention ought to be up front in some form. BruceW07 (talk) 21:19, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

I came back to this, now, months later and then just made the same editing error again: that is, inserting a discursion into theory into an otherwise brief introduction, where it just creates verbosity. Will I never learn? BruceW07 (talk) 12:39, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Historic causes of deflation

On some level of abstraction, I understand wanting to anchor "deflation" as a change in price level to Aggregate Supply contending with Aggregate Demand, but is that AD/AS frame at all helpful? Doesn't "deflation" like "inflation" have to be a monetary phenomenon? All the theories of economists reference monetary policies, no?

I am really confused about how this article ended up featuring IS/LM and interpreting it as AS/AD. BruceW07 (talk) 22:26, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

"Price Level" vs "Cost of Living" as a measure of deflation

I reverted an edit in the article introduction that had replaced a "price level" with "cost of living".

I don't think "price level" and "cost of living" are synonymous. "Deflation" (and "inflation") are treated by economics as a broad change in the exchange value of money. "Cost of living" refers to affordability -- the value of household income relative to the cost of goods and services associated with a standard of living. A broad price index like the Consumer Price Index might be used to measure or analyze either deflation or trends in the cost of living, but the interpretation would be quite different. With respect to "deflation" the issue is the changing value of a dollar or a euro or yuan; with respect to the "cost of living" the issue is the value of, say, the median household's income relative to some representative standard of living. BruceW07 (talk) 19:23, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Makes sense HudecEmil (talk) 19:50, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree with you; "cost of living" could include taxes; price level and deflation do not. ---Avatar317^(talk) 01:00, 1 August 2026 (UTC)