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Analysis: Beyond the cost of living crisis

04/07/2022

Beyond the cost of living crisis

BBC Radio 4 - Analysis, Beyond the cost of living crisis

Why is inflation on the rise, and what can we do about it?

Is the cost of living crisis just the beginning of an era of 1970s-style spiralling wage and price rises? And is low inflation now a thing of the past? Philip Coggan investigates.

The Bank of England says inflation might reach 11 per cent this year. There are warnings that some people will have to choose between heating and eating. 

But what does it mean for the whole economy when prices just keep rising? In the 1970s inflation in the UK led to prices and wages spiralling as workers fought for wages that would keep up with prices.  

Those years were dominated by waves of strikes and social unrest as inflation became embedded in the economic system. The current situation is being exacerbated by Covid 19, the war in Ukraine and Brexit so is there anything that government can do to stop it? How bad could it get? And are the days of low inflation gone forever?

Reporter Philip Coggan talks to:
Manoj Pradhan consultant at Talking Macroeconomics
Andy Haldane, Chief Executive of the RSA and former Chief Economist at the Bank of England
Jagjit Chadha: Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR)
Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive of the British Retail Consortium
Ruth Gregory, Economist at Capital Economics
Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics at Harvard University

Producer: Claire Bowes 
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith 
Production co-ordinators: Helena Warwick-Cross and Maria Ogundele 
Sound engineer: Neil Churchill

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