Perspectives on consumption in interwar Britain

Abstract

In this paper we offer both long run and international perspectives on consumption in interwar Britain. We conclude firstly that consumer behaviour over the last century has been very stable and can be explained by economic variables. Secondly, we show that the stability of consumption in Britain during the Great Depression compared with the sharp fall in consumption in America can be partly explained by the divergent behaviour of real wealth in the two countries. Thirdly, the emphasis of orthodox economic historians on the global effects of new products, demographic and distributional factors is shown to be misplaced. Aggregate consumption can be adequately explained by the standard economic variables, income and the price level.