Statistical Analyses and the "Laws" of Price
Mordecai Ezekiel
The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1928, vol. 42, issue 2, 199-227
Abstract:
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.
Date: 1928
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