Inflation processes in poland during the transformation period

From 1989 to 1997, the price of goods and consumer services rose very quickly under the influence of strong inflationary processes that took place in the Polish economy. Those processes were also present during the time of a centrally controlled economy. However, they did not appear as an open price inflation. This paper presents an analysis of inflationary processes before and during the transformation period. Special attention is paid to measuring inflation and to the utilization value of indices used for this kind of analysis. The most popular measure of inflation is the consumer price index (CPI). This paper presents a few examples of the many uses of the CPI. The focus is on the interpretation of this index which has special characteristics for the systemic transformation period taking place in Poland.