Learn: the concepts behind the numbers
Read the economy without being fooled.
The big ideas behind the headlines: inflation, growth, base effects, real versus nominal. Each taken apart slowly, in plain language, and illustrated with real Indian data.
01
Concepts
New entries added over time| Number | Entry | Illustrated with | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Inflation is not “prices going up”The most misread number in economics: a rate of change, not a price. What falling inflation actually means, what deflation actually looks like, and why the price level almost never comes back. | CPI combined, 2016–2025 | 9 min |
| 02 | Every number has a denominatorBase effects: why last year's spike flatters this year's print, and why the honest question about any inflation figure is “compared to what?”. | Food CPI, 2023–2025 | 7 min |
| 03 | Why onions move inflation more than rentIndex weights: the basket is not a list but a budget. How a spending survey decides what matters, and why your inflation is not the national inflation. | CPI group weights | 7 min |
| 04 | Core inflation: the signal under the noiseStrip out food and fuel and what remains is the demand side of the economy. What core is, why the RBI watches it, and why it is not the “real” inflation. | Core vs headline CPI, 2016–2025 | 7 min |
| 05 | Year-on-year, month-on-monthTwo ways to measure the same change. One cancels the seasons and moves slowly; the other is fast and mostly noise. When each is the right tool. | CPI, both measures computed | 6 min |
| 06 | Seasons in the dataMangoes in May, onions in November: prices keep a calendar. How to tell a seasonal wobble from a real turn, and why winter always looks like relief. | Food CPI level, 2016–2025 | 6 min |
| 07 | The band is law, not decorationInflation targeting: why 4 per cent, why a band of 2 to 6, and what happens, formally, in a letter, when the RBI misses it. | Headline CPI vs the band | 7 min |
| 08 | Index numbers and the base of 100Why statisticians abolish the rupee and measure everything against a fixed year. Laspeyres baskets, chaining, and what “100 in the base year” actually claims. | CPI level, 2016–2025 | 6 min |
| 09 | GDP: what it counts, what it missesThe value of everything produced, minus what was used up making it. What GDP measures honestly, and the three big things it cannot see. | GDP y/y, 2016–2025 | 9 min |
| 10 | GDP versus GVA: the tax wedgeTwo headline numbers for the same economy, differing by exactly one thing: taxes net of subsidies. Which one to quote, and when. | GDP and GVA y/y | 6 min |
| 11 | Real versus nominalGrowth can be more output or just higher prices. How statisticians strip inflation out of GDP, and why the deflator is the economy's second inflation rate. | Worked example with CPI | 7 min |
| 12 | Investment: the economy's bet on tomorrowGFCF: machines, factories, roads, homes. The spending that becomes capacity, why it is the growth number to watch, and what its slumps foretell. | GFCF y/y, 2016–2025 | 6 min |
| 13 | Consumption: the biggest slice of GDPPFCE: what households actually buy. Nearly sixty per cent of the economy, the quiet engine of Indian growth, and the first place a slowdown shows. | PFCE y/y, 2016–2025 | 6 min |
| 14 | The number will changeRevisions: why GDP is estimated, re-estimated, and finalised over three years, and how to treat every first print as a pencil sketch, not a photograph. | The GDP revision schedule | 6 min |
| 15 | Divide by the peoplePer capita: the economy grows at 8 per cent; the average Indian does not. What dividing by population does to the growth story, and what it hides. | Worked example | 5 min |
| 16 | The base year: the ruler's zero markWhy statistics carry a year in their name, what a base revision changes (and what it cannot), and what the 2026 move to new bases changed. | CPI and GDP bases | 6 min |
| 17 | Stocks and flowsWealth is a stock; income is a flow; GDP is a flow; debt is a stock. Half of all economic confusion is one of these mistaken for the other. | Worked examples | 6 min |
| 18 | The average hides the spreadMean versus median, growth versus who gets it. Why an 8 per cent economy can leave most people stationary, and the questions to ask of any average. | Worked example | 7 min |
| 19 | Noise and trendOne print is weather; three is a climate. The minimum unit of meaning in economic data, and how to read a turning point before the newspapers do. | CPI m/m vs y/y | 6 min |
| 20 | The monsoon and food pricesA failed monsoon reaches the inflation print three to six months late, and a good one shows up as deflation the winter after. The weather inside the number. | Food CPI, 2016–2025 | 7 min |