Inflation Shocks, Cost of Living Pressures, and Socioeconomic Resilience: Impacts on Households and Businesses

Dear Colleagues,

The recent surge in inflation and living costs has created major economic and social challenges across advanced, emerging, and developing economies. Rising prices for energy, food, housing, transport, and essential services have weakened purchasing power, increased inequality, and altered household consumption, saving, borrowing, and employment decisions. Businesses are also facing higher production and financing costs, supply chain disruptions, changing consumer demand, and growing uncertainty.

The effects of inflation vary significantly across income groups, sectors, regions, and institutional settings. Households experience differences in their exposure to price increases and in their ability to adjust spending and financial behavior. Firms vary in their capacity to absorb costs, revise prices, innovate, and remain competitive. Governments and central banks must balance price stability, fiscal sustainability, growth, and social protection while responding to geopolitical tensions, climate-related shocks, and structural changes in global markets.

Monetary policy frameworks and exchange rate regimes play a central role in shaping inflation dynamics and policy responses. Their effectiveness may differ across inflation-targeting systems, currency boards, fixed and flexible exchange rate regimes, and monetary unions. Particular attention is given to the euro area, the transmission of common monetary policy across heterogeneous member states, and the economic and social implications of euro adoption. Relevant issues include price convergence, inflation expectations, interest rates, competitiveness, financial integration, institutional preparedness, and public confidence.

This Special Issue invites theoretical, empirical, comparative, interdisciplinary, and policy-oriented research on inflation shocks, cost-of-living pressures, monetary policy responses, and socioeconomic resilience. Studies using microdata, macroeconomic models, big data, machine learning, structural models, and mixed methods are especially encouraged.

Topics of interest include the following:

• Inflation dynamics, expectations, persistence, and convergence;
• Cost-of-living pressures and purchasing power;
• Household consumption, saving, borrowing, and financial vulnerability;
• Poverty, inequality, social exclusion, and distributional effects;
• Wages, employment, and labor market adjustment;
• Business costs, pricing, profitability, competitiveness, and SME resilience;
• Energy, food, housing, geopolitical, and climate-related price shocks;
• Monetary policy responses, transmission mechanisms, and financial conditions;
• Inflation targeting, exchange rate regimes, and monetary unions;
• Euro adoption, price dynamics, public perceptions, and institutional preparedness;
• Exchange rate pass-through and imported inflation;
• Fiscal and monetary policy coordination;
• Social protection and targeted income support;
• Financial stability, interest rates, and access to credit;
• Regional, institutional, and community resilience;
• Sustainable and inclusive policy responses;
• Comparative, country-specific, and innovative methodological studies.

We welcome original research articles and review papers that advance academic knowledge while providing policy-relevant insights for governments, central banks, businesses, institutions and society.

Dr. Yanko Hristozov
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Economies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.