How Nigeria and Yale Have Similar Inflation

The median grade at Yale is an A.

At 52.39%, Economics was low on a Yale list of the percent of A’s and A-‘s in classes with enrollment over 500. Meanwhile, The History of Science clocked in with a 92.37% rate (in other words, almost everyone):

Grade Inflation

At Harvard also, A’s are average:

Fighting Grade Inflation

Twenty years ago, Princeton tried to conquer its grade inflation. Through a faculty resolution, instructors were asked to limit A’s to 35% of the grades they gave. Somewhat successful, the proportion of A’s dropped from a pre-2004 47% to 42% between 2010 and 2013. Opposition though came from younger faculty without tenure and from students. Meanwhile A’s at competing institutions continued ascending. Soon after new leadership arrived at Princeton, the policy disappeared.

We should add here that elite schools are not alone.  High school grades are also inflated as were grades at state schools.  (For state schools, I could find no recent data but would guess that grade inflation is everywhere.)

Our Bottom Line: Price Inflation

Like grade inflation, price inflation can be stubborn.

Inflation watchers were rather surprised that the U.S remained at a 3.5% 12-month rate.

Meanwhile, with unimaginably soaring prices, consumers in Argentina and Nigeria are complaining about suffering from government’s inflation fighting policies. Attacking what had been an annual inflation rate of 161% in December, Argentina’s strategy included lower energy and transportation subsidies. Relatively less pernicious, Nigeria had a 40% inflation rate but they too aroused anger by cutting a petrol subsidy.

Below, I’ve selected several high inflation countries. Including Venezuela and Zimbabwe was impossible because they spiked so high–even close to 400% for Venezuela– that all others wound up misleadingly at the very bottom of the graph:

So, whether looking at Yale and Harvard or Argentina and Nigeria, it is tough to pop inflationary bubbles filled with air rather than substance.

My sources and more: Thanks to Marginal Revolution for alerting me to Yale’s grade inflation that also was documented here from a Yale economist. Then, looking elsewhere, I found more at the NY Times, Forbes, and recalled this 2022 econlife. And finally, taking the leap to prices, I looked at Argentina and Nigeria.