Inflation without politics: how French prices outsmarted bullets, 1938-1949

Patrice Baubeau and Mateo Teixeira

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This article addresses the growing gap in the literature between qualitative data on prices and money in France around World War II, and the available CPI. It gathers archival price data to calculate a new CPI for 1938-1949, incorporating both official and black-market prices. The study demonstrates the adequacy of available sources and the robustness of the new CPI, both in its construction and when compared to contemporary analyses. Three key findings are that France did not experience exponential price acceleration; that dictatorship (1940-1944) was no more effective at price control than democracy (1945-1949); and that the 1944-1945 wage increases had a minor impact on inflation, questioning the price-wage loop explanation of France’s post-war inflation.

Keywords: Inflation; Prices; Black markets; Repression; Politics; Public statistics, History; Political economy; France, World War 2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E31 N0 N01 N1 N44 P4 P44 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-06-26, Revised 2024-08-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-his and nep-mon
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