Macroeconomics: UK economy, IB Economics

The Guardian looks at shrinkflation with more detail about how firms are trying to offset rising costs and high street competition. It's a good read - focusing on reductions in the number of fish fingers in a packet, the size of chocolate bars.

That said, the extent to which this has happened is limited, as the article notes: "The ONS estimated that only between 1% and 2.1% of food products in its sample had shrunk in size. It also only gathered details on the size and weight of about half of the 37,408 food and drink items in collected price data on a monthly basis."

Lovely macroeconomic article that looks at an unusual phenomenon of 'shrinkflation' - which allows producers to maintain prices whilst actually supplying less.

As a result, inflation figures don't reflect rising prices, when in effect the consumer is getting less for their money. According to the ONS, it's breakfast cereals and bread where there's greatest evidence of this, although some products have increased in size.