ABSTRACT
The inflation enquiries tried to fill gaps in knowledge in an area which, it seemed, had been neglected because the study of attitudes was often considered as the domain of psychologists while the study of inflation was looked upon primarily as that of economists. The objective of the enquiry commissioned by the National Economic Development Office was to find out which specific price rises would be most likely to lead to pay demands. The evidence suggested that there is a cleavage between the vocabulary used by economists and politicians on the one hand, and the rest of the population on the other. Prices policies have been used in Britain mainly as adjuncts to incomes and anti-inflation policies. Corn partmentalisation of thinking it would seem, impedes 'analytical' thinking and the recognition and acceptance of the interrelation of variables and events which are important for understanding problems of economic interdependence.
