62
A TREATISE ON MONEY
BK. II
Consumption Index.
Wholesale Index.
Eatio of the Two.
1913
100
100
100
1919
215
258
83
1920
257
308
83
1921
223
198
113
1922
181
159
114
1923
170
159
107
1924
172
165
104
1925
172
159
108
1926
169
148
114
1927
166
142
117
1928
164
140
117
1929
162
126
119
As in the case of the United States , it is seen thatthe wholesale index, whilst it exaggerated the falland rise in the purchasing power of money in thepost-war boom and slump, tends over the wholeperiod since 1913 progressively to under-estimate itsfall.
It would be of great advantage to a clear under-standing of the social consequences of changes in thepurchasing power of money if the Board of Trade wereto compile a really good general Consumption Indexand carry it back, if possible, for some fifty years.An index which deliberately aimed at representingconsumption would obviously be preferable to anyof the “ mixed ” index-numbers, such as Mr. Snyder’sindex just discussed, or Professor Wesley Mitchell’s“general-purpose” index-number, which is the averageof several index-numbers of distinct types ; thoughsuch index-numbers 1 may be serviceable as a sub-
1 Characteristically described by Edgeworth in bis British AssociationMemorandum as “ a compromise between all the modes and purposes—the method, if practical exigencies impose the condition that we mustemploy one method, not many methods . . . recommended by a jumbleof heterogeneous and incommensurable considerations, like the celebrated