Knowledge that Transforms

THE investigation of wholesale prices in the United States for the period I825-45, here described, was undertaken with a dual purpose. First, there was need for a more complete account of the movements in individual and general prices for the period before the Civil War than had been given. The available series of annual index numbers, of course, gave no information of the movements of average prices during the year. Moreover, the diversity of movement among the prices of individual commodities, the variation in movement between groups of commodities economically allied,

IN the case of most statistical series the abnormal features of the war and early postwar years made extraordinarily difficult the calculation of which could be projected into the future for forecasting purposes. In no other case, however, has this difficulty been so great as in the statistics of the building industry. Today, 7 years after the close of the war, we are still not only in the dark as to what the trend of the industry is likely to be during the next few years, but also equally confused, because lacking adequate standards of judgment, as to the significance of the intense activity of the recent past. In the present paper brief reference will be made to certain recent studies which have calculated or assumed building normal for the purpose of estimating the extent to which the accumulated building shortage of the war and post-war years has been made up, and consideration will be given to the factors which will affect the building normal of the future. Most of the earlier attempts' to calculate building followed the course of endeavoring, by the method of least squares, to fit straight line to the data representing the annual value of building permits issued in large number of cities over long period of time. Because of the difficulties involved in determining normal period of adequate length and of making allowance for the effect of changes brought about by the war, none of these studies have produced long-term trend lines which have been received with any large measure of confidence, especially for forecasting purposes. A second group of investigators have sought the elusive of the building industry by plotting building permits against population growth instead of solely against time. For instance, Mr. H. B. Byer of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics has recently published the results of an investigation in which he assumed that the line of population increase is the normal line of increase. 2 The validity of this assumption is to be considered later. At the present time it is sufficient to note that his investigation resulting in the conclusion that at the end of I924 had not only made up for the war shortage but was actually about four-tenths ahead of current needs is subject to the obvious criticism that the author used as the basis of his calculations the value of permits issued in single, and by no means typical year, namely, I9I4. The same general assumption that building varies directly and proportionately with population is the starting point of another investigation into the building shortage by the research staff of the National Bank of Commerce.3 Starting with the more normal year, I9I3, as the base, this study developed a trend of building requirements or a line of normal growth of construction which was based simply on the annual population of the 66 urban centers selected. Incidentally, the conclusion reached was that at the end of I924, building shortage of over 3 billion dollars still remained. Of this same general type was the well-known study of the building shortage made by Col. L. P. Ayres, in I922.4 His was found by fitting line, by the method of least squares, to the data representing the annual value of building permits per capita of population for 50 cities for the period I900 to I9I6. It therefore assumed that building operations varied directly with population. The period chosen, moreover, was subject to the criticism that it began with year of abnormally low activity and ended with one of fairly high activity. To the present writer the underlying assumption of this second type of investigation does

FROM historical data recently collected it is now possible to carry the record of monthly production of coal back to January I905 and the monthly production of beehive coke back to I897. The figures are comparable with the current statistics now published by the Bureau of Mines (formerly by the United States Geological Survey). The continuous monthly series over the longer period may be of interest to students of the business cycle and the figures are here presented without analysis in order to make them promptly available. The Bureau's estimates of weekly and monthly production are based upon (i) complete and detailed annual reports from all producers, and (2) current reports of coal loaded for shipment by the principal rail and water carriers, the relation of which to the total production has been recorded for several years. The method of estimate was explained in the Journal of the American Statistical Association (September I920, pp. 3I4-25). That the shipments furnish a substantial basis for estimating the total output is seen from the following: production fluctuates directly with the shipments and either production or shipments will suffice as a measure of the activity of the anthracite industry. Of the two items, production is preferable because it may be added to bituminous coal production to get the total output of all coal in the country. For this reason and because the present record of shipments is not exactly comparable with the one formerly kept by the Anthracite Bureau of Information, now unfortunately discontinued, the Bureau of Mines will hereafter publish the current production rather than the shipments. The figures from January I905 to December I925 are given in Table i. For bituminous coal the problem is not so simple because of the conversion of coal into coke in beehive ovens located at the mines. The quantity so used fluctuates independently of either total production or of shipments of raw coal, and this makes it necessary to determine the current production of beehive coke as an incident to estimating the production of bituminous coal. This has led the Bureau of Mines to carry its record of monthly beehive coke production back to I897. The figures for I897 to I926 are given in Table 2. Data beginning with I9I2 had previously been published in Mineral Resources of the United States, I923 (Part II, p. 437). For those who may wish them, the records of shipments of beehive coke from the District, as reported by the Courier and an earlier newspaper, are given in Table 3. These records are available back to January I894. The Courier's figures have long been accepted by the trade as reliable, and they agree fairly well with the official government returns. It should be noted, however, that for the period I9OI-06 they also include the shipments from the small Upper Connellsville district and are not exactly comparable with the other years. For the early years shown in Tables 2 and 3, beehive coke was probably a good business indicator, though it simply reproduced the DISPOSITION OF COAL PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES IN I923, A TYPICAL YEAR

A LTHOUGH there is still much that we do not know with even approximate accuracy regarding the inter-relations between labor and the business cycle, some definite advances have been made during the past few years.' The purpose of this article is to summarize and interpret the results of a few investigations in this field. Special consideration is given to their emphasis is given to the three topics, (I) employment, (2) labor mobility or turnover, and (3) operations of public employment offices. Of secondary importance, though very useful in interpreting the relations between labor and the business cycle, are (4) employment advertising in newspapers, (5) labor disputes, and (6) immigration.

IN IIg an analysis of New York bank clearings and railroad and industrial stock prices for the period I903-I4 showed that these three speculative series displayed similar cyclical fluctuations, preceding corresponding fluctuations of outside bank clearings and money rates by several months.2 With the object of testing the synchronism of the cyclical fluctuations of the speculative series for a longer period of years, the study has been extended back to i866; and comparisons of the series for the entire period I866-I9I4 are set forth in this paper. For the period 1903-I4 the data underlying these comparisons were taken from the previous study. For the period I866-I902 new data were assembled. Monthly items for bank clearings for I866I902 were obtained from the Commercial and Financial Chronicle.3 In order to obtain a continuous series of monthly railroad stock prices beginning with I866, it was necessary to join three indexes. For the period I866-80 there was available the index of the prices of Io railroad common stocks previously published in this REVIEW.4 For the years I88I-96 no index was available and a new monthly index of the prices of Io railroad common stocks was constructed. This index is described in detail in the Appendix to this paper, pp. I93-98. For the remainder of the period under examination, we used the Dow-Jones index of railroad stocks, available from I897.5 These three indexes, which are on different bases, were adjusted to form a continuous series on the level of the Dow-Jones index by the use of factors based on overlapping data. Indexes of industrial stock prices were available in monthly form beginning with I872. For the years I872-96 the series compiled by the New York Federal Reserve Bank was available, and from I897, the Dow-Jones index.6 As the series for I872-96 was obtained by working backward from the Dow-Jones list of I2 stocks in I897, adjustment of the series for the two periods was unnecessary. No indexes of industrial stock prices were available earlier than I872 because of the lack of representative organized markets. Similarity in the cyclical fluctuations of the three speculative series would probably have been revealed by plotting them on the same logarithmic chart. But comparison would have been difficult at times owing to the diverging or crossing of the curves the result of varying trends. In New York bank clearings the general movement was upward throughout the period (Chart 2). A moderate, steady rate of growth persisted from i866 to I896, followed by a sharper upward trend during a transitional period which lasted until I903. Thereafter until the end of the period, the rate of increase was less marked. The series for railroad stock prices was subject to both changes in the character of the long-time movement and pronounced shifts of level. During the years i866 to about I882 the trend was uncertain; the succeeding movement, not far from horizontal, persisted until I897, and was followed by an abrupt transition in I897I903 to a markedly higher level, which was maintained through I9I4 (Chart 3). Industrial stock prices showed one sharp