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SUMMARY:War and Prices: Austerity and the Cost of Living Index in Britain 
 (c. 1939-1950) - Aashish Velkar (University of Manchester)
DTSTART:20251113T171500Z
DTEND:20251113T184500Z
UID:TALK237493@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:116791
DESCRIPTION:This paper examines the function of UK's Cost of Living Index 
 during the 1940s as the government's 'instrument of stabilisation.' The st
 abilisation policy was aimed at keeping price inflation down by subsidisin
 g the price of goods that comprised the index and thereby tempering the de
 mands for wage increases. Although historiography has emphasised the role 
 of socialist ideology and fiscal management for the persistence of post-wa
 r austerity this paper explores a more prosaic explanation. I will argue t
 hat the government faced an 'austerity trilemma' whereby removal of subsid
 ies would have been impossible without a significant rise in the price ind
 ex. The narrative reconstructed from government documents reveals how offi
 cials engaged in several 'scenario-building' efforts to sequence the timin
 g in which subsidies could be withdrawn with least economic and political 
 disruptions. The price index served as a key rhetorical instrument to bala
 nce economic necessities (reducing government expenditure) with the politi
 cal acceptability of withdrwaing subsidies on some commodities but not oth
 ers.
LOCATION:Lightfoot Room - St John's College
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