Retail and Consumer Prices, 1955-1963

This paper gives an account of a method of forecasting the Ministry of Labour's retail prices index, and of deriving from it a forecast of the consumer price index. (This is the index used in the National Income statistics to deflate the value of consumers' expenditure to volume terms.) Good forecasting obviously has to be based on a correct analysis of the factors which determine price changes; the article throws light on the way in which cost changes are taken into account when prices are changed. It seems that retail prices (apart from seasonal food prices) do not respond directly to short-term fluctuations in demand and output. Businessmen do not raise prices because demand suddenly rises; nor on the other hand do they lower them when output moves up sharply and unit costs fall. The analysis, therefore, provides further support for the ‘normal cost’ theory of pricing—that businessmen set prices by calculating their costs when working at some normal capacity, and add a conventional margin.