Professor Martin O'Connell

We document “Cheapflation”: within defined categories, prices rise fastest for low-quality essentials, disproportionately affecting poorer household.

How should governments respond to rapid increases in the cost of living driven by shocks to the prices of staple goods?

An expansion of discounter retailers coincided with declining retail and manufacturer concentration across most narrowly defined product categories

We provide new evidence that inflation inequality surged during the 2021–2023 cost-of living crisis.

How should governments respond to rapid increases in the cost of living driven by shocks to the prices of staple goods?

Using household scanner data for fast-moving consumer goods, we show that this was accompanied by historically high rates of inflation inequality.

We evaluate the impact of a price floor for alcohol introduced in Scotland in 2018, using a difference-in-differences strategy with England as a contr

We study consumer spending dynamics during one such time, the first infection wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, using household scanner data covering fast-moving consumer goods in the United Kingdom.

We use real‐time scanner data during the COVID‐19 pandemic to investigate the drivers of the inflationary spike at the beginning of lockdown.

We study the introduction of a price floor for alcohol that is aimed at correcting for negative consumption externalities. Policy effectiveness depend