Economic essays

Bibliographic data

Monograph

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

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

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

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

Collection:: Economics Books

A STATISTICAL METHOD FOR MEASURING ‘MARGINAL UTILITY’ 193 Evidently a demand schedule is not the simple thing it seems and I distrust statistically calculated demand curves except as they represent the temporary situation in the market as con- cerns substitutes, complements and money valuation. But a sta- tistical determination of the subjective value of income as a whole and of “physical” indexes of its constituent groups, such as food, clothing, housing, etec., seems a practical possibility. a Conclusion I have emphasized the fact throughout that I am here offering no statistics but only a statistical method. I have, however, applied the method to certain available statistics of the U. 8S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The results confirm the common idea that progressive rather than regressive taxation of incomes is justified. I do not give these statistical figures here because the data need to be “smoothed” and subjected to critical analysis for varying size of family and other complications before the results can be considered even roughly accurate. Thus, the actual application of the formule here given to statistical use is deferred for another paper. If someone else than I will perform this arduous task I shall be more than pleased. The only important point which is made in the present paper is that if we have given budget tables for two different places (or times) relating to families presumably very similar in all essential particulars and have given also the relative price levels for both places or times for each of the budget groups (such as food, cloth- ing, or rent), and if these relative prices diverge sufficiently from each other, our formul® ought to give results of at least some statistical value.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Economic essays

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation