Service prices in the best restaurants in France from the 1950s grow faster than agent 007’s salary.

Lee A. Craig, Julianne Treme and Thomas J. Weiss wrote “License to Dine: 007 and the Real Exchange Rate” analysis. Ian Fleming’s James Bond books describe as many as 500 of his meals, an average of 12 in each novel.

There are over 100 restaurants listed in the Agent 007 novels, nearly two-thirds of which are in operation today, or at least until the 2020 pandemic.

The researchers compiled a price database of 18 restaurants where James Bond had a meal. They include L’Oustau de Baumanière from Les Baux-de-Provence and Le Grand Véfour from Paris, both with three stars.

Researchers also collected data for the years 1953–2019 on the wages of people from the British civil service from level 7 (Grade 7 salaries), i.e. one which also included the famous agent 007.

The analysis shows that the prices of services in French restaurants grew faster than the agent’s income during the considered period. To eat in a fancy restaurant once a week in the 1950s and 1960s, James Bond would have to spend 18% of his salary. Meanwhile, the same “basket” of meals after the introduction of the euro in France (i.e. after 2002) would cost as much as 26% of the earnings of the famous agent, and at the end of the analyzed period, even a third of his salary.

For those interested in the earnings of her Majesty’s secret agent, the authors report that in the book “Moonraker” from 1955, Fleming wrote that Bond received £ 1,500 a year. This is more than three times the average salary in Great Britain (£ 434). Agent 007 was paid a salary that placed him among the few per cent of the highest-earning Britons. For comparison, currently, in Poland, a threefold salary of the national average would amount to approximately 21,000 PLN per month.

Aleksander Piński, economic journalist, author of book reviews and reviews of the latest economic research order