Economic essays

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Identifikator:: 1753623200

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136107

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Economic essays

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: viii, 368 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

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Title:: A statistical method for measuring "marginal utility" and testing the justice of a progressive income tax / Irving Fisher

Collection:: Economics Books

192 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK EAN nr a The curve could, of course, be extended to other points cor- responding to Cases 3, 5, 7, ete., and could be drawn on “doubly logarithmic” paper and treated as we have indicated for the want- of-income curve. Similarly the want-for-one-more “sq. ft.” of rent or shelter may be worked out as follows: Sip1 1000 X 24 Si re RE 80.00 Wilk, == .75X 3.= 2.25 i i Rola giving the point in the curve corresponding to Case 1; and, for Case 3: Sus 1440 X 25 3 =120.00 pen HL a from which we see that an increase from 80 to 120 “sq. ft.” diminishes the marginal wantability of shelter from 2.25 to 1.00 wantabs. According to these figures the food curve descends faster than the rent curve, this being due in the calculations to the more rapid change of the percentage (4) spent on food with a given change of income as compared with the corresponding change in the percentage (p) for rent. Thus by means of our formule we extract from “Engel’s law” its true significance psychologically. In the same way we may calculate the curves for clothing or any other consumption group, provided it is reasonably inde- pendent of the other groups. It is not feasible to construct any curve for bread, or butter, potatoes, or other items, the substitutes and complements of which have an important influence on their wantabilities. The reason is that a curve can only represent a variable as dependent on one other variable. When, as in the case of, say, bread or butter, its wantability depends on many vari- ables (e.g., on the quantities of bread, butter, potatoes), we need something more than a curve. A surface can show one variable dependent on two others. Beyond that no purely geometric repre- sentation will suffice, although a set of numerical schedules might conceivably be made out. Of course, these want curves or want schedules, when taken in conjunction with the want curve for income, first discussed, underlie demand curves and schedules.

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