RETAIL PRICES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27275, 29 December 1949, Page 6

RETAIL PRICES

MOVEMENTS OVER 41 YEARS

Price movements in the period from 1907 to 1948 are summarised in a special supplement of the Monthly Abstract of Statistics. The supplement deals with the consumers’ price index. “In the years immediately before the First World War retail prices were very stable,” says the supplement. “During and immediately after that war prices rose sharply, the average annual rate of increase between 1914 and 1921 being 7.4 per cent. In 1922 there was a recession of 8 per cent, from the peak level of 1921; then six years of gradually rising prices. Between 1928 and 1933 there was a sharp fall in retail prices, the average annual rate of decrease during these years being 4.6 per cent. Since 1933 the trend has been continuously upward, the average annual rate of increase between 1933 and 1948 being 3.4 per cent.

“The impact of retail price movements during and after the Second World War has been markedly different from the experience in and after World War I. The average annual rate

of increase in retail prices between 1914 and 1921 was 7.4 per cent., and between 1938 and 1948, 3.3 per cent. Both these periods cover the war years and three post-war years. During the whole period 1907-1948 the average annual increase in retail prices was 2 per cent.”

In comparing the movements in New Zealand in this period with countries with a similar standard of living—New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the United States of America—the supplement continues:—

“There is considerable similarity in the movement in retail prices in all four countries between these significant periods, with the exception that in the last period, 1945-1948, the upward movement in retail prices has been very much lower in Zealand and Australia than in Canada or the United States. The increases in retail prices between 1938 and 1948 (covering the war and post-war years to date) in each country are: New Zealand, 38 per cent.; Australia, 44 per cent.; Canada, 52 per cent.; and the United States. 70 per cent.”