(Press-News.org)
As prices rose across the globe following the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, many expected the usual pattern, i.e., low-income households bearing the brunt of inflation. But in South Korea, they observed something exactly opposite to the usual scenario.
A new study by Dr. Taiwon Ha from Pusan National University, South Korea, available online on 04 June 2025, in the journal Asian-Pacific Economic Literature shows that upper-middle-income households experienced a higher price increase than the poor, who were typically more affected during past inflationary periods. “While the consumer price index (CPI) is generally used for policymakers and researchers, this composite index cannot represent specific effects on real life,” states Dr. Taiwon Ha.
By creating a household-specific price index and analyzing inflation’s impact across different income levels, the study provides a more detailed view of how cost-of-living pressures were felt in Korean households. Fuel and dining expenses emerged as the top drivers of inflation - expenses that are more common among employed, middle-income families who commute and eat out frequently. This phenomenon was not unique to Korea. Similar trends were seen in the U.S. and Europe, where middle-class families found themselves squeezed by transportation and service sector costs.
Yet CPI, the go-to metric for measuring inflation, failed to capture this divergence. That’s a problem, the study argues, because CPI “cannot fully represent the heterogeneous effects of inflation,” especially during volatile periods.
To bridge that gap, Dr. Ha decomposed the inflation spike into its specific contributors, such as oil prices and food, and examined how those impacts varied by household type. “This study provides more specific insights to support the policy-making process,” Dr. Taiwon explains, “such as who is more affected by price changes to design benefits, for example, either a targeted benefit or a universal benefit.”
The study found that female-led households, the unemployed, the highly educated, and the elderly were more likely to adjust their spending to mitigate inflation. Larger households and urban residents also managed better due to shared expenses or access to public transit.
The findings also suggest that policy responses need to evolve. For example, oil tax cuts may benefit car-owning commuters more than others, while food stamps or direct subsidies could help households unable to reduce spending. “This study can offer a meaningful complementary tool to CPI for policymakers,” Dr. Taiwon notes, “to gain a more specific picture in response to future inflation.”
Going forward, governments should monitor not just national inflation averages, but also how those changes are distributed across society. Household spending patterns, demographics, and consumption flexibility can all act as early warning signs for where economic pain will strike next.
To truly understand who is suffering the most, household-level data is essential. The study found that households with greater spending flexibility, particularly those led by women, the unemployed, or individuals with higher education, were better able to adapt to changing prices. These insights suggest that smarter, more targeted policy responses, such as focused benefits and improved access to price information, may be more effective than broad, untargeted subsidies. Ultimately, inflation is not just an abstract figure. It affects real lives. As inflation shocks continue to challenge economies worldwide, this research underscores the importance of informed, precise policymaking grounded in an understanding of both macro trends and household realities.
***
Reference
DOI: 10.1111/apel.12458
About Pusan National University
Pusan National University, located in Busan, South Korea, was founded in 1946 and is now the No. 1 national university of South Korea in research and educational competency. The multi-campus university also has other smaller campuses in Yangsan, Miryang, and Ami. The university prides itself on the principles of truth, freedom, and service and has approximately 30,000 students, 1,200 professors, and 750 faculty members. The university comprises 14 colleges (schools) and one independent division, with 103 departments in all.
Website: https://www.pusan.ac.kr/eng/Main.do
About the Author
Prof. Taiwon Ha is a tenure-track assistant professor of Department of Public Administration at Pusan National University in South Korea. He completed PhD in Economics from University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. Moreover, he accumulated nearly 20 years of professional experience in the Korean government, such as Ministry of Economy and Finance and Statistics Korea, and United Nations ESCAP. His research interests include household well-being (income and consumption expenditure), public finance, welfare, poverty, and heterogeneous causal effect analysis.
Lab website address: https://sites.google.com/view/taiwonha
ORCID id: 0000-0001-6243-6967
END
Broiler chickens, bred for rapid growth, accumulate more fat under chronic heat stress, which reduces meat quality and production efficiency. In a recent study, researchers from Japan revealed that heat stress directly alters fat metabolism in adipose tissue, regulating genes that promote fat storage. Their findings suggest new strategies to mitigate heat stress-related losses in poultry production amidst global warming.
The world’s growing population relies heavily on poultry as a source of protein, making the health and productivity of chickens critical for global food security. ...
San Francisco — Personalized CRISPR cures for children born with rare genetic diseases are now a step closer to being more widely available. Today, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) and the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) announced the funding of the Center for Pediatric CRISPR Cures (Center). The Center will use CRISPR-based editing technology to advance cures for severe pediatric genetic diseases and will bridge CRISPR cure design and testing at the University of California, Berkeley ...
Liquid biopsies are tests that detect signs of cancer through a simple blood draw. Unlike traditional biopsies, which require removing a piece of tissue, a liquid biopsy typically looks for mutations or modification changes in fragments of DNA from cancer cells circulating in the blood. While liquid biopsies are a promising, non-invasive way to detect and monitor cancer as it progresses, they aren’t as sensitive or accurate for the early stages of disease.
Researchers at the University of Chicago have now developed a more sensitive liquid biopsy test that uses RNA instead of DNA for detecting cancer. Using blood samples from patients with colorectal cancer, the test was able to detect ...
On July 8, 2025, physicists from Aalto University in Finland published a transmon qubit coherence dramatically surpassing previous scientifically published records. The millisecond coherence measurement marks a quantum leap in computational technology, with the previous maximum echo coherence measurements approaching 0.6 milliseconds.
Longer qubit coherence allows for an extended window of time in which quantum computers can execute error-free operations, enabling more complex quantum computations and more quantum logic operations before errors occur. Not only does this allow for more calculations with noisy quantum computers, but it also decreases the resources needed for ...
The devastating floods that killed nearly 200 people in Germany four years ago this month could have been even more damaging, new research suggests.
The floods in July 2021 were among the worst disasters in German history. At least 196 people died in Germany, 43 people died in Belgium and the total damage to Central Europe amounted to €46 billion. The devastation of the floods was attributed to a climate change-driven shift in the jet stream that steered a huge storm that became “cut off” ...
University of Cincinnati Cancer Center researchers looked billions of years into the past to learn more about the potential future of precision medicine.
Led by first author Bibek R. Karki and senior author Tom Cunningham, new research published July 8 in the journal Nature Communications traced the evolutionary origins of the PRPS enzyme complex and learned more about how this complex functions and influences cellular biochemistry.
Study background
The researchers focused on one of nature’s most important and evolutionarily ...
Researchers have discovered a strategy to neutralise two highly lethal viruses for which there is currently no approved vaccine or cure.
A team led by Professor Daniel Watterson and Dr Ariel Isaacs at The University of Queensland has identified the first ever nanobody to work against Nipah and Hendra, henipaviruses which have jumped from animals to people in Asia and Australia.
“A nanobody is one-tenth the size of an antibody and being that small it can access hard-to-reach areas of a virus to block infection,” Dr Isaacs said.
“Nanobodies are also easier to produce and more stable at higher temperatures than traditional antibodies, so we are very excited about the potential ...
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have uncovered how to manipulate electrical flow through crystalline silicon, a material at the heart of modern technology. The discovery could lead to smaller, faster, and more efficient devices by harnessing quantum electron behavior.
At the quantum scale, electrons behave more like waves than particles. And now, scientists have shown that the symmetrical structure of silicon molecules can be fine-tuned to create, or suppress, a phenomenon known as destructive interference. The effect can turn conductivity “on” or “off,” functioning as a molecular-scale ...
Ongoing research into the effect of environmental change on the buzzing of bees reveals that high temperatures and exposure to heavy metals reduces the frequency (and audible pitch) of non-flight wing vibrations, which could have consequences on the effectiveness of bee communication and their role as pollinators.
“People have been long interested in how insect flight muscles work, as these muscles power the most efficient flight systems in nature,” says Dr Charlie Woodrow, a post-doctoral researcher at Uppsala University. “However, many do not know that bees use these muscles for functions other than flight.”
These ...
A new paper in BJS, published by Oxford University Press, indicates that early-onset gastrointestinal cancer rates are rising dramatically across the globe.
In the United States, the age-standardized rate of colorectal cancer decreased from 66.2 cases per 100,000 people in 1985 to 35.7 cases per 100,000 people in 2018. In contrast, early-onset colorectal cancer has shown a marked increase in both men and women in the United States since the mid-1990s, with the age-adjusted incidence rising from 5.9 cases per 100,000 in 2000 to 8.4 cases per 100,000 in 2017. Compared with adults born in 1950, those born in 1990 have twice the risk of ...
