The Federal Census; Critical Essays by Members of the American Economic Association (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 Excerpt: ...Manufacturing Industries, 1: 2 and 4. trary treatment of the figures; for it assumes that the inflated value of the dollar, in 1870, has only to be eliminated in order to make comparable statistics, whereas the fact is that another element of variation remains which forbids exact comparison--the variation in the quantity of product represented by a dollar, due to change in prices. This variation is so great as to make exact comparison impossible, even if the standard itself were fixed and uniform. In his discussion of the manufacturing statistics of 1870 General Walker stated1 that "after much thought and extensive inquiry on the subject, and the application of numerous tests, he was disposed to regard 56 per cent as a just statement of the increase in price for all classes of mechanical and manufacturing productions between 1860 and 1870; that is, that manufactured articles of the same quality (averaging all branches of production) which would have been worth $1,000,000,000 in 1860 would have been worth $1,560,000,000 in 1870. This would leave the increase of manufacturing production in the ten years to be represented by 52 per cent." In other words, in the census of 1870, which showed an increase of 108 per cent over 1860, 52 per cent, according to General Walker's calculations, represented the increase in manufacturing production, or " the actual industrial growth," and 56 per cent represented the increase due to increased prices, caused partly by an inflated currency. Thus we have General Walker, in order to get a reasonable basis of comparison for quantities with the census of 1860, suggesting the reduction of the value of the product of 1870 by 56 per cent of the value of the product of 1860 and Colonel Wright reduc 1 Ninth Census, ...