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xxxiii, [1], 538, [2] pages. Footnotes. Tables. Appendices (including Selected Bibliography). Index. Name written inside front and back covers. Some cover wear. This was the first publication in the Pollak Foundation for Economic Research! Includes Prefatory Note; Preface to Third Edition; Preface to the Second Edition; and Preface. Includes Suggestions to Readers, Introduction; Six Types of Index Numbers Compared; Four Methods of Weighting; Two Great Reversal Tests; Erratic, Biased, and Freakish Index Numbers; The Two Reversal Tests as Finders of Formulae; Rectifying Formulae by "Crossing" Them; Rectifying Formulae by Crossing Their Weights; The Enlarged Series of Formulae; What Simple Index Number is Best?; What is the Best Index Number?; Comparing All the Index Numbers with the "Ideal" (Formula 353); The So-called Circular Test; Blending the Apparently Inconsistent Results; Speed of Calculation; Other Practical Considerations; and Summary and Outlook; Also includes Notes to the Text; The Influence of Weighting; and An Index Number an Average or Ratios Rather than a Ratio of Averages. This third edition is an exact reprint of the second edition, except for Appendix IX, beginning on page 521, which records and discusses the literature appearing since the first edition. Thus he provides methods of measuring fluctuations in real wages, in rates, in trade, and in the purchasing power of money. He states that, once a good method of constructing index numbers has been accepted, the use of the instrument will be extended to fields where precise measurement is needed. In this book, the author tests not only all formulae for index numbers that have been used, but all that reasonably could be used, and he tests them by extensive and painstaking calculations, based on actual statistics. He proves that several methods of constructing index numbers which were in common use when the first edition of this book was published are grossly inaccurate; he explains why some formulas are precise and others far from it; he points out how to save time in calculation; and he shows how to test results. Irving Fisher (February 27, 1867 - April 29, 1947) was an American economist, statistician, inventor, and progressive social campaigner. He was one of the earliest American neoclassical economists, though his later work on debt deflation has been embraced by the post-Keynesian school. Joseph Schumpeter described him as "the greatest economist the United States has ever produced", an assessment later repeated by James Tobin and Milton Friedman. Fisher made important contributions to utility theory and general equilibrium. He was also a pioneer in the rigorous study of intertemporal choice in markets, which led him to develop a theory of capital and interest rates. His research on the quantity theory of money inaugurated the school of macroeconomic thought known as "monetarism". Fisher was also a pioneer of econometrics, including the development of index numbers. Some concepts named after him include the Fisher equation, the Fisher hypothesis, the international Fisher effect, the Fisher separation theorem and Fisher market. Fisher's reputation has increased in academic economics, particularly after his theoretical models were rediscovered in the late 1960s to the 1970s, a period of increasing reliance on mathematical models within the field. Interest in him has also grown in the public due to an increased interest in debt deflation after the late-2000s recession. Fisher was one of the foremost proponents of the full-reserve banking, which he advocated as one of the authors of A Program for Monetary Reform where the general proposal is outlined. Third Edition, Revised. Presumed first printing thus.
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