cheapflationとは 意味・読み方・使い方

発音

• IPA: /tʃiːpˈflej.ʃən/

名詞

cheapflation (uncountable)

1. (Can we verify this sense?) (economics, informal, neologism) The practice of decreasing the main ingredient of a product or replacing it altogether with a less costly one but continuing to market it at the same price and size.
   • 2024 March 4, [deleted user], “Cheapflation- Turkey Hill frozen dairy dessert”, in r/shrinkflation‎:

     I usually stay away from the ice cream isle but bought this as a " treat" 🤢. I thought i lost my sense of taste until i read the carton. [Artificially Flavored Vanilla Swirled With Roasted Peanut Butter] […] [bigolruckus:] “Ice cream” has got so cheaply made and over priced I’ve stopped buying it

   • 2024 April 30, Lauren Walker, “Not-so-fishy fish sticks”, in The Brussels Times‎, archived from the original on 4 August 2024:

     However, the latest trend, "cheapflation", is deemed the most harmful so far. ¶ "Cheapflation" – a contraction of "cheap" and "inflation" – is a cunning sales trick which sees producers reduce, remove or replace the most expensive ingredient in products with cheaper or lower-quality substitutes.

   • 2024 December 12, “Understanding Cheapflation and Its Impact on the Consumer Market”, in tastewise‎, archived from the original on 8 September 2025:

     Have you noticed that your favorite snacks seem a little less satisfying or your go-to products don’t last as long as they used to? ¶ This could be due to Cheapflation. It’s a sneaky trend where businesses reduce product quality or offer less value without changing the price.

   • 2026 January 5, u/easyandthorny, “Is pâté a healthier option than flaked, grilled or in gravy?”, in r/catfood‎:

     If you noticed many pet food companies discontinued pate styles and produce higher margin gravy and other fillers diluted varieties. More starches as fillers, less costly than proteins, more money pocketed by the companies. Cheapflation in all its ugliness.

   • 2026 May 24, u/Urban_Introvert, “Why I make my own matcha”, in r/MatchaEverything‎:

     [Matcha looks very inexpensive to produce for the company:] Went from shrinkflation to cheapflation. Flat out robbery.

   • 2026 June 4, u/mikejungle, “Whole foods produce molds within days”, in r/FoodSanDiego‎:

     Zion used to be a pillar in the community in the 90's. Then they got bigger, and they started cheapflation before shrinkflation was common knowledge. It's cheaper than average, so its great if it fits your budget. I don't trust them for anything meaningful, though.

   • 2026 June 23, u/NigraOvis, “Started whisking my mashed potatoes only for the whisk to break in half and dump a bunch of white powder into the mash. Cheers All-Clad.”, in r/mildlyinteresting‎:

     i've snapped 2 wooden spoons. The cheapflation is getting real.

2. (economics, neologism) An experience of inflation in which the prices of low-cost goods increase faster than those of higher priced goods in the same category.
   • 2024, Alberto Cavallo, Oleksiy Kryvtsov, “Price discounts and cheapflation during the post-pandemic inflation surge”, in Journal of Monetary Economics, volume 148, number Supplement, →DOI:

     Price changes associated with discounts grew at a much lower average rate than regular prices, helping to mitigate the inflation burden. By contrast, cheapflation – a faster rise in prices of cheaper goods relative to prices of more expensive varieties of the same good – exacerbated it.

   • 2024 July 10, Bryce Elder, “Turns out cheapflation was a thing after all”, in Financial Times‎, archived from the original on 10 July 2024:

     An NBER working paper from Alberto Cavallo and Oleksiy Kryvtsov published last month finds “ample evidence” that so-called cheapflation is a global phenomenon. Their study of grocery prices through the recent inflation surge shows that prices of cheap goods grew between 1.3 to 1.9 times faster than the prices of more expensive brands

   • 2025, Kelsey O'Flaherty, Why Households Hate Grocery Inflation and Other Essays in Economic Measurement, PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, page 133:

     When households substitute in ways that do not lower their inflation rates, it may reflect patterns of “cheapflation,” a phenomenon Chen, Levell, and O’Connell (2024) document in the United Kingdom and connect to inflation heterogeneity. They find that from 2021-2023, goods at the low end of the quality distribution experienced significantly higher price changes than those at the high end

   • 2025 November 28, Dana Gerber, “Paying top dollar for a bargain: ‘Cheapflation’ keeps prices high on the budget stuff”, in Boston Globe, page A.1:

     At least for food retailers, inflation hit cheaper products harder than premium varieties of the same products, narrowing the gap between bargain and splurge for shoppers. That was a key finding of a recent study, coauthored by Harvard Business School professor Alberto Cavallo, which dubbed the phenomenon “cheapflation.’’

   • 2026 May, Kunal Sangani, “Cheapflation cycles”, in NBER Working Paper Series, →DOI, page 2:

     We find that pass-through in levels and differences in house-hold spending shares across categories quantitatively account for the extent of cheapflation and inflation inequality from 2021–2023, leaving limited scope for other channels. Moreover, we show that the cheapflation and elevated inflation inequality were by no means special to the post-pandemic period.

関連する語

• shrinkflation
• shitflation
• skimpflation