Abstract

In 2022, annual inflation reached 8.7% in Italy, the largest increase since the mid- 1980s. The rise in consumer prices in this country, as well as in other Western economies, is mainly due to the increase in energy prices. In Italy, economic policies aimed at tackling inflation have been limited to subsidies for businesses and households. Policies did not address the structural causes rooted in our dependence on gas and oil imports, in inefficient energy markets, and in the lack of an industrial policy favouring production adjustments and ecological transition. Inflation revives the distributional conflict triggered by rising prices, as well as the need for an incomes policy centred on the protection of real wages.