eli5: Why does shortage of a product produce high inflation across the board?

Question

I don’t understand why shortage of product causes inflation across the board. For example, eggs are hard to get, but everything goes up in price due to the shortage. I can understand that low supply of eggs will cause the price of eggs to go up, by why does it affect all the other prices of food too?

In: 1

Answer 1

Inflation is already an average, not every products price has to rise to have inflation. And a shortage of one product means its going to get more expensive as supply and demand determine the price and supply drops.