ISSUE 2025, No. 1, Article 5, Year of publication: 16, March, 2025
Inflation as a result of economic and
geopolitical developments
AUTHOR
Nevena Pašalić, MSc*
*Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Srpska
ABSTRACT
ARTICLE INFO
The paper analyzes inflation trends in recent years as a result of the coronavirus crisis and geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and the
Middle East. The aforementioned crises have had a significant impact on global trends and macroeconomic business conditions. Global
growth remains uncertain due to ongoing geopolitical risks and the continuation of possible potential disruptions in the supply chain. The
monetary policy of central banks significantly determines economic trends. If central banks maintain a tight monetary policy in order to
control inflation, this could further slow down economic growth in the near future. The paper also examines the state of the economy of
the European Union (EU), as it is currently the most important foreign trade partner of Republika Srpska, to which it exports over 70%
of goods, and imports about 55% of goods from the EU. Within the EU, the most important foreign trade partners are Italy, Croatia andy. Germany. Looking at all countries, the most important foreign trade partner of Republika Srpska is Serbia, with which it achieves 16.5%
of the total volume of foreign trade.
The relationship between rising inflation and economic growth is a major topic in macroeconomics. According to the classical “monetary
neutrality” approach, rising inflation has little impact on real gross domestic product (GDP), because inflation similarly increases prices
and wages while simply changing the units of measurement. A similar view is that rising inflation is not the cause of reduced economic
growth, but rather a symptom of underlying economic problems that reduce growth, such as supply-side distortions or fiscal imbalances.
Alternatively, some macroeconomic theories, such as New Keynesian theories, assume that rising inflation can increase real GDP in the
short run, at least under certain conditions. Such theories have difficulty explaining “stagflation,” which is both high inflation and slow
economic growth (World Bank, 2023).
Inflation in the EU has generally been on a downward trend in recent years, but it still faces fluctuations due to various global and domestic
economic factors. The aim of the paper is to analyze and prove the impact of geopolitical developments at the global level, with special
reference to the countries of the European Union, on economic growth and inflation in the Republic of Srpska. The research used methods
of analysis, synthesis, deduction, comparative method and statistical method.
Keywords: inflation, economic growth, European Union, Republika Srpska