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Index Numbers. By Bruce D. Mudgett. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1951. Pp. 135. $3.00.

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Index Numbers. By Bruce D. Mudgett. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1951. Pp. 135. $3.00.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Irving H. Siegel
Affiliation:
The Twentieth Century Fund, Washington, D.C.

Abstract

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Type
Reviews of Books
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1952

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References

1 In discussing the evolution of the wholesale price index (pp. 84–85), Mudgett confuses the Bureau (originally in the Department of Interior) with the Department of Labor (established years later).

2 Two passages do relate, however, to topics in the “economic” theory—one to the vapid “Konus condition” (p. 40), concerning which Mudgett had written an earlier article, and the other to the alleged intermediacy of the “true” index between the Paasche and Laspeyres values (pp. 34–36).

3 Since Mudgett ignores practice in production measurement, he underestimates the extent to which the chain method is used in the United States (p. 70).

4 The inefficacy of an algebraic prescription is apparent from a perusal of the 400-odd pages of Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor … Pursuant to H. Res. 73 (Washington, 1951), devoted entirely to the consumers' price index.