Inflation rise and cost of living in Milan

Milan, a metropolitan city of international renown, industrious and eclectic, dedicated to development and innovation, is the Italian capital of entrepreneurship, business, and finance. Its cost of living has always stood out from the Italian average, but lately, the rise in the price of gas has produced further increases in inflation.
Which impact do we have to experience every day as Bocconi students?
At the end of 2022, Milan’s inflationary balance was far from optimistic. The annual report published by ISTAT identified an inflation rate of 11.7% higher than the previous year. The last time such a high trend inflation rate was recorded in Milan was 38 years ago, in August 1984.
Confcommercio [1] data speak of a “zeroing of consumption growth in the last three months of 2022”, indeed, due to higher prices, spending by the city population is reduced. (To engage consumption growth, regions’ presidents are talking about a cut of IRAP for companies that implement corporate
welfare for their employees).
A great index of everyday life cost is the Consumer Price Index, which its annual trend rate is equal to +10.8% and is growing continuously from month to month.
Talking about nutrition, food products in the city registered an increase of 12.5% compared to January 2022. Extraordinary was the rise of Carnaroli rice, a very widespread product, that has come to cost 4.9 euros per kilo, against 3.12 in December 2021.
Furthermore, considering the catering in Milan, whose extraordinarily high costs our students have surely experienced, it experimented an increase of 12.8% compared to last year, according to the ISTAT data.
What about transportation? Milan is known to have a well-connected network thanks to its functional public transport. Students who use them seldom, unfortunately, will have discovered prices of single and weekly tickets increased by 10%. The alternative to moving around the city, by car, is not quite inviting considering the actual cost of petrol. In general, ISTAT has calculated that the transportation sector in Milan has increased by 8,2% compared to last year.
Another consideration is related to energy-related costs. Indeed, the shortage of gas had serious repercussions on this field, in which the city of Milan has suffered more than the other Italian cities: here prices have grown by 214% compared to 2021, while expenditures for “housing, water, electricity, and fuel” surged 55.3% more than last year.
Another datum particularly worrying, and especially for our off-site students, is the increase in rents.
Milan was already one of the most expensive cities in Europe for its absurdly high prices per square meter and the present phenomenon has driven prices up even more. In particular, student housing  sector has returned to denounce the substantial gap between demand and supply for quality housing services.
Moreover, an increase in inflation has a direct impact on the lease contracts linked to the FOI index (i.e. those that provide for the 4+4 term formula). An analysis conducted by the Idealista Research
Department calculates how much the increase in the FOI index updated by ISTAT (+11,3%) will affect the adjustment of the lease contracts. The result is that considering a three-room apartment,
Milan citizens will have to pay 119 euros more per month than last year.
We can conclude without doubt that the increase in inflation has a direct impact on the cost of living in vast aspects in citizens of Milan, consequently, it’s a phenomenon much felt by Bocconi students.
However, a clarification is necessary, namely that not only the shortage and cost of gas has impacts on the inflationary increase, but also the high cost of raw materials due to the covid lockdowns in underdeveloped countries exporting raw materials.

[1] Italian organization representing companies engaged in business

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