Knowledge that Transforms

Economists have been skeptical as to the real significance of statistical price analyses. Simplified assumptions as to nature of price determination are partly responsible, 201. — Marshall's treatment was nearer to the concrete facts, 202. — Definition of the market in time and space has an important bearing upon the meaning of the data, 203. — Actual events represent constant flux, not successive static periods, 203. — Statistics can reveal only current adjustments, not final equilibria, 203. — The type of the adjustment varies with the length of the period, 204. — The prices which directly affect production and consumption are frequently not the central market prices, 205; and non-economic factors also are involved, 206. — A curve of supply-and-price may be determined from observations in successive intervals, 207; even if demand is changing, 208. — The curve of supply-and-price is not the theoretical demand curve, 214; since reservation demands by producers may be regarded either as a demand-schedule or a supply-schedule, 215. — With regard to a price fixed by total supply, reservation demands are part of the demand schedule, 215. — But this schedule may be resolved into its components by proper statistical analyses, 216. — This involves determination (a) of the effect of price upon supply, and (b) of the effect of price upon storage, consumption, and withholdings, 217. — Price also has an effect upon subsequent production, 219. — Such changes in production are usually more important than immediate adjustments of supply to price, 220. — This is true even of durable goods, 221. — Statistical measurement of the effect of price upon production illustrated, 222. — Statistical measurements of economic reactions do not yield absolute laws, 223. — This analysis refutes some previous criticisms of the logic of statistical price studies, 224, and of the methods, 225; and indicates the statistical cautions needed to give reliable results, 226.

Nature of the data, — Tonnage of the merchant fleet, Table I, 466. — Shipping cleared in foreign trade, Table II, 469. — Entrances at London, Table III, 470. — Synoptic graph, 473. — Size of vessels, Tables IV and V, 475, 476. — Conclusion, 478.

Relative prices and the absolute height of prices. — Interest as a price, 512. — The equilibrium rate of interest is a price; how it is determined, 513. — The absolute height of prices, 515. — The bank rate, 516. — Stability of prices is possible only when the bank rate is the same as the equilibrium rate, 517. — No other device is adequate, 519. — The gold standard does not bring stability of prices, 520. — A manipulated bank rate may mitigate the instability, but with disturbing effects, 521. — Some explanations: special conditions of a progressive society; various kinds of interest rates; how the rate of interest affects prices, 523. — Dynamic as contrasted to static conditions; cyclical movements; futility of mathematical wave theories, 526.

I. The Rise and Fall of Material Culture. Population, cultivated area, and wealth have swelled and dwindled almost rhythmically for thousands of years — the moving frontier of settled agriculture. — II. Rainfall and Cultivated Area. Relation of topography to rainfall and cost of transport by zones, 48. — Significance of the alternate fallow year, 53. — Cereal and olive production the one index of economic development applicable to all periods, 54. — Extent of the economically valuable area. The change since ancient times has been economic, not geographic, 56. — III. Irrigation. Irrigation important, not so much for itself as because of its effects upon the dry-farming area. Evidence from ruins that climate has not basically changed, 58. — Ancient and modern dry-farming similar, 60. — Limited resources of North Africa in irrigation water, 65. — IV. Soil Exhaustion. Soil exhaustion rather an effect or accompaniment of economic decay than a cause, 68. — Some damage from erosion and deforestation, but this less important than commercial, social, and technical changes, 70. — V. Population and its Economic Basis. Growth of Algerian population during the past century. Professor Pearl over emphasizes war-losses, under emphasizes drought periods; but his results are extremely significant, 71. — Algeria a liability to France during the first half-century of fumbling. Followed by a half-century of progress under policies built upon knowledge of North African geography, 74. — VI. The Economics of Empire. Agricultural and administrative policies under which North Africa has prospered roughly similar in all ages, but the differences in detail are important, 79. — "Arabization" has been mainly social and economic, not biological, 82. — Economic significance of Roman and modern frontiers: the camel, the railway, and the motorcar, 83. — "Environmental resistance, " 85. — Can North Africa be a self-supporting or self-governing economic unit? 86. — The benefits of "imperialism, " 87.

The Index of the General Price Level Get access Carl Snyder Carl Snyder Federal Reserve Bank, New York Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 42, Issue 4, August 1928, Pages 701–707, https://doi.org/10.2307/1882542 Published: 01 August 1928