On price inflation

This thesis seeks to analyse price inflation under oligopoly capitalism. Its central argument is that under oligopoly capitalism, price inflation is a structural phenomenon. For a greater understanding of that phenomenon, the adoption of the inter-industrial approach for its analysis seems essential. According to this approach, price inflation can be initiated in a single industry or in an industry group. The initiating factor may be an increase in the mark-up, an increase in the money wage rate or an increase in the foreign currency price of an imported input. It can also be initiated by devaluation. The input-output matrix, the core of the economic system, is the key to the transmission of inflationary impulses (in the form of higher unit cost) from one industry to another. Real wage resistance, rigid mark-up resistance, and rigid foreign resistance do no more than perpetuate or worsen the inflationary experience. The inflationary process itself has a dual role to play. It acts as a mechanism for shifting income distribution in favour of one section of the society against another and as a mechanism for changing the price structure.<br/><br/>The author argues that the abandonment of the macroeconomic approach to the analysis of price inflation and its replacement by the inter-industrial approach is the first step for serious analysis of that structural phenomenon.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Ph.D.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Southampton

Year dc:date.issued

1986

Author dc:creator

• Al-Wattar, Obey M.

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Aldrich, John
• Heathfield, David
• Ingham, Alan
• Smith, Peter