Earlier this year, dictionary.com added the word "greedflation" to its list of actual words, which it defines as, "a rise in prices, rents, or the like, that is not due to market pressure or any other factor organic to the economy, but is caused by corporate executives or boards of directors, property owners, etc., solely to increase profits that are already healthy or excessive."
A nonprofit called Groundwork Collaborative, with the mission of driving "policy change with credibility, expertise, and impact," claimed credit for helping push "greedflation" into the common political parlance. They might be right. The group authored a widely cited study that purports to show how outsized corporate profits have caused rising prices. And the paper is just as economically illiterate as the concept of "greedflation" at its core. The authors misrepresented and cherry-picked data, and they misunderstood the meaning of a key economic indicator.
