THE emergence of oligopoly as the typical industrial structure can affect the macro-operation of the modern economy in numerous ways. One way is through the pricing policy of the oligopolists, and this is the centre of our investigation here. Thus the alleged failure of oligopolists to reduce prices in the 'thirties was advanced by Means [5] as one explanation for the continuance of the depression. Later, authors such as Ackley [I] and Galbraith [3] suggested that price restraint by oligopolists was limiting the inflationary consequences of the high levels of demand in the early 'fifties. The central feature of these arguments is that the emergence of oligopolist market situations may change the nature of the links between price changes and demand factors. Discussion on this feature has largely been undertaken within the context of the administered price thesis, on which Lustgarten [4] and Sawyer [6, chapter 9] provide reviews. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between price change and oligopoly in the United Kingdom over the period 1963 to 1975. In doing so, we present a general approach to oligopolistic pricing, within which the administered price thesis can be seen as a variant.