High cost of living moves world’s most expensive country closer to the EU

“High prices are due mainly to lack of competition: here, oligopoly is almost a national sport,” says economist Thorvaldur Gylfason, emeritus professor at the University of Iceland. To this crucial factor he adds another equally important one: the high transport costs for most products. “We import half of what we consume, mostly from continental Europe.” And although the Icelandic krona, blamed by many, “does not by itself play a major direct role in high prices, Iceland does have a long history of currency crashes, events that are usually accompanied by inflation.” Article by Ignacio Fariza