Inflation and the Hard Truths: Taming the Beast: Why Inflation Persists in Bangladesh—and What It Will Take to Bring It Under Control

Inflation is often treated as a technical malfunction—something to be corrected with interest rates, budget tightening, or short-term administrative controls. In Bangladesh, these tools have been used repeatedly. Inflation persists.

Inflation and the Hard Truths argues that this persistence is not a policy accident but a systemic outcome shaped by incentive structures, enforcement capacity, and coordination failures. Prices do not rise in a vacuum. They are formed along supply chains where market power, weak competition, selective enforcement, and fragmented governance interact—often blunting the effectiveness of otherwise sound policies.

Written by an economist but for a broad, policy-oriented audience, this book moves beyond textbook explanations to examine how inflation actually forms, spreads, and hardens in institutionally constrained and partially captured systems. It explains why conventional tools often stall, why growth alone does not guarantee price stability, and why inflation control cannot succeed without credible competition, accountability, and enforcement.

The book makes a clear, evidence-grounded case that inflation in Bangladesh can be stabilized and gradually reduced—without sacrificing growth—but only through a coordinated, whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach. It presents a practical framework linking monetary and fiscal policy with market oversight, competition policy, trade management, law enforcement, judicial accountability, and information-driven citizen engagement that reinforces policy credibility.

This is not a call for repression or austerity. It is a call for state capacity and governance effectiveness.

Inflation and the Hard Truths is for policymakers, students, journalists, business leaders, development practitioners, and citizens who want to understand why prices keep rising—and what it will truly take to tame the beast.