Persistent increases in the general level of prices. It can be seen as a devaluing of the worth of money.
Inflation is a recurring but only intermittent historical phenomenon.
Its most serious recent appearance occurred during the 1970s in the wake of the quadrupling of oil prices in 1973, when annual inflation rates in the developed world rose as high as 25 per cent, but for the rest of the post-war period it has not been unusual for the inflation rate to be exceeded by the real growth rate. A crucial feature of inflation is that price rises are sustained. Accounts of the causes of inflation are numerous. These causes often amount to the same thing. The mechanism by which the increase in money supply causes inflation is by creating excess demand, making monetarism compatible with the demand-pull argument.