From Economic Convergence to Convergence in Affluence? Income Growth, Household Expenditure and the Rise of Mass Consumption in Britain and West Germany, 1950-1974

The “Golden Age” of post-war European economic growth has witnessedextraordinary changes not only in the economic, but also in the social andcultural outlook of Western European societies. Eric Hobsbawm’s statementthat “[h]istorians of the twentieth century in the third millennium will probably seethe century’s major impact on history as the one made by and in thisastonishing period”1 is perhaps a little bit too enthusiastic; but it shows that the“Great Boom” has come to be regarded as a key period on the road to thepresent-day Western world. It has transformed the countries of the West andhas at the same time made them more similar to each other.[...]