Real World Economics: Why beef prices defy inflation theories - Pioneer Press

Theory Briefing

• Walter Mondale's 1984 "Where's the beef" moment is invoked to frame a modern mystery: why beef costs defy the inflation slowdown everyone else is feeling.
• Standard supply-and-demand models predict prices should ease as inflation retreats, but beef stubbornly refuses to follow the script.
• The gap between beef prices and general inflation points to market-specific forces — like cattle herd sizes or meatpacker concentration — that broad theories tend to overlook.
• Real-world commodity markets often break from textbook predictions, making beef a test case for where economic models hit their limits.