----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- I sent Alain Desrosieres Tom's message. Here is his answer : TO: Tom Stapleford Annie Cot sent me your question about the history of CPI. It is a very interesting topic, with two sides 1) economic theory, with for example the Irving Fisher book of 1922 (The Making of Index Numbers) 2) statistical practice in the NSIs You can look (if you don't know it already) at : Kendall M.G. : "Studies in the History of Probability and Statistics, XXI. The early history of index numbers". Review of the International Statistical Institute,Vol. 37, 1969. There is a very good bibliography. You surely know the book : Duncan and Shelton, Revolution in US Govt Statistics, 1926-1976, (US dept of Commerce, 1978) in which there are many informations about the history of CPI. There would be a lot of things to see about these questions : uses of CPI (indexation of wages, national accounts, deflation of vaues by prices to have volumes, etc...)and technics : coverage, weightings, Paasche vs Laspeyre, etc.... For the collect of data, there are two parts : household budget surveys for the weightings, observations of prices. Both are interesting. If you read French, I can send you a paper I wrote about the history of household budget surveys. Alain Desrosičres Annie L. Cot ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]