Description:
Using polling data for 31,869 households in 38 countries, and allowing for country effects, the authors show that the poor are more likely than the rich to mention inflation as a top national concern. This result survives several robustness checks. Also, direct measures of improvements in well-being for the poor - the change in their share of national income, the percentage decline in poverty, and the percentage change in the real minimum wage - are negatively correlated with inflation in pooled cross-country samples. High inflation tends to lower the share of the bottom quintile and the real minimum wage - and tends to increase poverty