During the COVID-19 pandemic, a significant divergence emerged between South Africa’s GDP deflator, which measures inflation for all domestically produced goods and services in a given year, and the CPI, which tracks inflation for a fixed basket of consumer goods and services, including imports. One reason the CPI may understate inflation during a pandemic is that it fails to account for shifts in spending patterns. Over the last two years, CPI inflation has been higher than the increases in the GDP deflator. The upcoming reweighting of CPI to update the consumer price basket will therefore be keenly watched by economists. EconData makes historical CPI weights back to 1970 available for subscribers who would like to analyse historical CPI developments.
Compiled by Lisa Martin
