Dhaka, Oct. 27 -- Whenever we go grocery shopping, prices, particularly food prices feel much more than the single-digit inflation figure suggests. Economic statistics can often obscure lived experience, and our daily reality often tells a different story, the one of steadily eroding purchasing power over years and decades.

This gap between official numbers and reality shows a problem in how we track inflation in Bangladesh. Policymakers usually focus on year-over-year rates, which are currently around 8-9 per cent. But we rarely look at how prices build up over many years. This long-run view matters for families, businesses, and policy decisions.

To trace back how price levels have changed over roughly the last two decades, we calculat...