The nature of capital and income

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 102659555X

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-82920

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Fisher, Irving http://d-nb.info/gnd/118533541

Title:: The nature of capital and income

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: The Macmillan Company

Year of publication:: 1923

Scope:: XXI, 427 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2019

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Introduction. Fundamental concepts

Collection:: Economics Books

A 16 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Cuar. I measurement includes, as we have seen, two elements: a unit of measure, which may be inaceurate; and a number or ratio between the quantity to be measured and the unit, which number may also be inaccurate. In modern times the first source of error is practically eliminated. Our units of weight and measure are standardized by law, and a pound weight in California is equal to one in Connecticut, within one part in many thousand. The chief source of error, therefore, lies not in the unit, but in the ratio of the wealth to that unit. In retail trade the inaccuracy is as great as five per cent, or greater. Wholesale transactions are more accurate. A large manufacturing concern of Syracuse had its measurement of the weight of caustic soda sold in carload lots compared with the measurement made by its customers, and the results agreed within one fifth of one per cent on two fifty-carload lots. Probably the greatest degree of accuracy ever obtained in com- mercial measurements is on the Mint scales used by the United States in Philadelphia and San Francisco. These scales weigh accurately to within about one part in ten million. When we proceed from quantities of wealth to values, we introduce still a third source of inaccuracy, namely, in the price factor by which we multiply. This is especially true if the price be merely an “appraised” price. The price of any actual sale is an absolute fact and cannot be said to Lave any inaccuracy; but the price at which we estimate that a thing would sell under certain conditions is always uncertain. In the case of staple articles, 1.e. articles regu- larly on the market, a dealer can often appraise correctly within one per cent. Real estate in certain parts of a city where sales are active can sometimes be appraised correctly within five or ten per cent; but in the “dead” or out-of- the-way parts of some towns, where sales are infrequent, the appraisement becomes merely a rough guess. Again, in the country districts, while farms in the settled parts of g

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