In Venezuela, Economists Improvise to Track Economy

On monthly trips to his native Venezuela, Miguel Octavio heads to the same restaurant for the cornmeal cakes he enjoyed as a boy known as arepas, which are a staple here. The price, however, is never the same. Over nine months, the Miami-based financial analyst and blogger has recorded a fourfold increase in what he calls his Hyperinflated Arepa Index, a yardstick he created to trace soaring consumer prices in this economically crippled country. President Nicolás Maduro’s government stopped publishing monthly inflation data last December when the level hit 68% annually, the world’s highest. With the Venezuelan economy worsening and the ruling party facing tough congressional elections this December, the central bank hasn’t reported inflation, balance-of-payments or gross-domestic-product figures all year. More…