Costs, Prices and Inflation

Long-run historical series since 1270

Users should first consult the labour market and wages and prices section of Millennium of Macroeconomic Data v3.1 (xls) for long-run composite time series up to the present day.  These contain some of the data from the more detailed sources listed below.  Summary data from this spreadsheet are available for interactive viewing via FRED.

Medieval and early modern data

For detailed medieval data on English wages and prices users should consult the datasets of Professor Greg Clark of UC Davis and Professor Bob Allen of NYU Abu Dhabi.  These datasets can be found on Professor Clark's website and the Global Price and Income History Group website.  Various price and worker-based cost of living indices have been constructed from these. For additional evidence on the level of wages in the long C18th users should also consult the DPhil thesis of Judy Stephenson.

The Millennium of Macroeconomic Data v3.1 dataset additionally contains wage and price indices from the late C17th but users should consult the following sections from the Gayer Rostow Schwartz microfiche for the period 1790-1850.

• Gayer, Rostow, Schwartz - Part III - Tables of Commodity Prices
• Gayer, Rostow, Schwartz - Part IV Section III - Commodity Price Series

Modern data on consumer prices

Official consumer and retail price indices were developed in the UK as interest in living standards and the cost of living increased. A summary of the retail price indices that were constructed in the C20th can be found at:

• Retail Prices 1914-1990

ONS have subsequently developed long run consumer price inflation estimates based on official and historical estimates discussed here:

• Consumer price inflation since 1750 by Jim O’Donoghue, Louise Goulding and Grahame Allen

and available on the ONS website here. Alternative time series can be found in the Millennium of Macroeconomic Data  spreadsheet

Measures of comparative value

For measures of comparative value across time users should consult the Measuring Worth website curated by Professor Sam Williamson who provides various measures for the UK and other countries.

Consumer Prices - Methodology

The development of price indices is conventionally dated back to the C18th during which Carli and Dutot developed methods for constructing elementary unweighted price indices. Laspeyres and Paasche developed the theory behind weighted indices in the C19th based on using the available information in quantities and expenditure shares to weight prices together. Fisher and Törnqvist in the C20th provided practical methods of approximating theoretically superlative indices as outlined by François Divisia. An NBER paper by Erwin Diewert provides an excellent guide to the early history of Price Index Research:

• Diewert 1988 - The Early History of Price Index Research

Several official consumer and retail price indices have been developed in the UK over the past century and a half using a mixture of these methods. A summary of these can be found in:

• Retail Prices 1914-1990

Methodological articles on consumer prices in the period from 1998 and 2016 can be found here:

• Articles 1998-2004
• Articles 2005-2009
• Articles 2010-2016

The Johnson Review from 2015 provides a summary of the modern thinking on price indices and the advantages and disadvantage of different methods and provided a set of recommendations on the way forward.

• UK Consumer Price Statistics - A Review led by Paul Johnson

Further articles on methodological developments since then can be found on the ONS website.

Producer Prices - Methodology

Useful methodological articles can be found below:

• ET-59-Index numbers of wholesale prices Sep-1958
• ET 465 Producer Price Indices-present practice, future developments and international comparisons - 1992
• ET – 597 – Introducing a new method to calculate index weights for the Producer Price Indices – August 2003
• GSS Methodology Series No. 20 - Producer Price Indices - principles and procedures
• Producer Price Methodology articles since 2004
• Service Sector PPI articles since 2004

The following titles are available to select in the dropdown menus of this section.

• British Labour Historical Abstracts
• London and Cambridge Economic Service Monthly Bulletins 1923-1951
• Ministry of Labour Gazette 1919-1946
• Monthly Digest of Statistics from 1946
• Producer Price Indices (MM22) Monthly from 2001

Please select a publication title and year from the boxes below to narrow down the list. Alternatively type in a general search term. The available excel and pdf files are shown in the table. If the publication you are looking for is not in this section please see the complete list of downloadable publications. 

Select Publication or Input Search Term