Hans H. Landsberg

Harold Barger

English

Research Papers in Economics

This PDF is a selection from an out-of-print volume from the National
Bureau of Economic Research
Volume Title: American Agriculture, 1899-1939: A Study of Output,
Employment and Productivity
Volume Author/Editor: Harold Barger and Hans H. Landsberg
Volume Publisher: NBER
Volume ISBN: 0-87014-041-8
Volume URL: http://www.nber.org/books/barg42-1
Publication Date: 1942
Chapter Title: Appendix C: Comparison with Other Indexes of Output
Chapter Author: Harold Barger, Hans H. Landsberg
Chapter URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c4606
Chapter pages in book: (p. 401 - 408)Appendix C
Comparison with Other Indexes of OutputAppendix C
•Comparison with Other Indexes of Output
IN ADDITION to the index presented in this volume (Tables 1 and
5), three other indexes of agricultural output have been pub-
lished for recent years: by the Bureau of Agricultural Econom-
ics; by Frederick Strauss and L. H. Bean of the Department of
Agriculture; and by the National Research Project. These in-
dexes are compared with our own, on a 1929 base, in Table C-l.
The four indexes resemble each other closely in general move-
ment. Two of them—the BAE index and the Strauss-Bean index
—attempt to measure net output (i.e., exclude crops used for seed
and feed, and milk fed to calves) and use prices as weights (i.e.,
are based upon one, or a series of comparisons in constant
prices): in these respects their construction resembles that of our
own output index. In contrast, the series published by the Na-
•tional Research Project was computed from gross output and
used labor requirements as weights: in its methods of construc-
tion it therefore differs radically from the other indexes men-
tioned.
Unlike our own index, that computed by the Bureau of Agri-
cultural Economics 1 takes no account of changes in livestock in-
ventories. The differences on this account may be gauged from
the comparison in Table C-2, where both indexes are broken
down into their crop and livestock components. It will be seen
that the series for crops agree much more closely than do the
series for livestock products. The differences between the com-
bined indexes (NBER and BAE) in Table C-i are largely the
result of this difference in the treatment of livestock. Thus, when-
ever we have allowed for a decrease in inventory, our livestock
index falls below the corresponding BAE index—most strikingly
1 The Farm Income Situation (U. S. Bureau of Agricultural Economics,
Nov. 1941), p.10.
403404 APPENDIX C
TABLE C-I
INDEXES OF AGRICULTURAL OUTPUT, 1897-1939
1929:100
Strauss- Strauss-
TearJVBERa BAEb Beano TearWBERa BAEb Beanb NRFd
189766.0.. 69.4 191890.291.689.7 89
189869.5.. 73.2 191987.191.989.1 87
189969.5.. 72.3
192090.093.195595
1921 81.984.684.3 81
190070.1.. 73.0
192290.392.390.1 88
190168.8.. 70.7
192391.995.991.190
190271.8.. 74.1
192494.998.993.292
190372.5.. 73.6
192595.898.594.598
190475.7.. 77.5
1926101.3101.5100.6102 190575.3.. 77.5
192798.298.997.1 96
190681.7.. 82.3
1928102.4103.3102.0101
190776.3.. 76.2
1929100.0100.0100.0100
190878.1.. 79.6
190977.479.978.1 78 1930100.499.2100.9 97
1931104.0103.3108.9107
191079.480.279.9 82 1932100.097.9101.7100
191181.583.881.7 85 193397.497.396.295
191285.686.285.5 90 193483.593.977.580
1913 82.882.583.484 193592.292.387.494
191489.687.591.292 193693.094.188.0 88
191589.987.790.4 89 1937106.3106.6104.6
191682.384.182.3 85 1938105.4103.6
191785.986.684.989 1939110.7107.9
aTable5; computed from data in Table A-i, Appendix A.
bNotavailable until 1909. For 1909—39 source is The Farm Income Situa-
tion (U. S. Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Nov. 1941), p. 10.
Frederick Strauss and L. H. Bean, Gross Farm Income and Indices of
Farm Production and Prices in the United States, 1869—193 7, Technical Bulle-
tin 703 (U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1940), Table 60, variant entitled
"ideal index."
dNotavailable until 1909. For 1909 and following years source is R. G.
Bressler, Jr., and J. A. Hopkins, Trends in Size and Production of the Aggre-
gate Farm Enterprise, 1909—3 6 (National Research Project, Philadelphia,
1938), Table 4COMPARISONS WITH OTHER INDEXES 405
during the period 1918—27—while it catches up with or exceeds
the BAE index in years during which herds were being built up
—e.g., 1913—18, 1928—33. In a number of years these discrepancies
lead not merely to different rates of change, but to actual diver-
gence in direction. This is not surprising. For the period 1909—
16, for example, our livestock index shows an uninterrupted rise,
while the BAE index records three years of decrease—1910, 1912
and 1914—decreases in the volume of slaughterings were more
than compensated for by increases in number on hand. Thus,
while slaughter of hogs fell by 7 percent between 1909 and 1910,
there was an increase of 15 percent for hogs on farms during 1910,
so that on balance net output of hogs increased 9 percent be-
tween 1909 and 1910. A similar situation exists between 1913 and
1914, except that in this instance decreases in slaughter and in-
creases in herds occurred not only in hogs, but also in cattle. The
quantitatively most important discrepancy develops for the pe-
riod 1933—35. Inventory changes during those years were large,
and their omission results in a rise in the BAE index from 1933
to 1934 and a sharp fall from 1934 to 1935, while our index
records a contrary movement.
As is pointed out elsewhere 2ourindex would show a smaller
decline between 1933 and 1934, if we had included in our slaugh-
ter series the volume slaughtered for government account. Even
then, however, there would still remain a drop instead of the
increase shown by the BAE index. It is perhaps idle to argue over
the "true" production index for this three-year stretch, 1933—35,
since it presents very anomalous conditions which allow of a vari-
ety of interpretations. Once we have explained the difference be-
tween the two indexes in terms of their scope, the choice between
them may be left to the reader.
We turn now to a comparison between our index and that ad-
vanced by Strauss and Bean.3 The two indexes (Table C-i)
resemble eachothercloselyand observabledifferencesof
2 or 3 points are difficult to trace; probably they result from
2P.106, above.
3FrederickStrauss and Louis H. Bean, Gross Farm Income and Indices of
Production and Prices in the United States, 1869—1937, Technical Bulletin
703 (U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1940), Table 60.406 APPENDIX C
the combined effect of small differences in data and in weights.4
Thus, the slightly faster rise shown by our index up to 1906
might be due to our higher estimates, for the later years, of
corn and livestock production, and a smaller drop in non-
citrus fruit. A somewhat larger difference occurs in 1920 when
the Strauss-Bean index exceeds ours by more than 5 percentage
points. This seems traceable to a discrepancy between the two
livestock indexes, which in turn must be ascribed—as far as the
authors can determine—to some errors, typographical or other-
wise, in the Strauss-Bean bulletin.5 But for these discrepancies,
the Strauss-Bean index would not, for instance, exceed our index
in 1920 and 1931 by around 5 percentage points.
Differences between our index and the National Research
Project index 6 remain within 5 percentage points, but are hard
to track down since they are due to differences not only in data
but also in weights. Indeed, it must be considered astonishing
that the use of an entirely different weighting system—manhours
per unit instead of value per unit—results in an index which re-
ports very similar movements for the period as a whole.
4TheStrauss-Bean index takes account of changes in livestock inventories,
as does our own. However, the former uses Fisher's "ideal" formula (Strauss
and Bean, op. cit., pp. 19-20) instead of the Edgeworth formula used. here
(pp. 326-27 above).
5 From the data as given in Strauss and Bean, op. cit., Tables 72 and 89,
it is not possible to reconstruct the series for the "ideal" index, for 1910 and
later years, given in Table 73.
6 R. C. Bressler, Jr., and j. A. Hopkins, Trends in Size and Production of
the Aggregate Farm Enterprise, 1909—36 (National Research Project, Phila-
delphia, 1938), Table 4.COMPARISONS WITH OTHER INDEXES 407
TABLE C-2
NETOUTPUT OF CROPS ANDLIVESTOCK
PRODUCTS,
1929:100
Livestock
Crops Products
Tear NBER BAE NBER BAE
1909 84.7 82.5 71.5 78.4
1910 86.2 83.5 73.9 78.2
1911 89.2 86.6 75.3 81.9
1912 97.9 95.3 75.9 80.5
1913 88.4 85.4 78.0 80.7
1914 102.8 101.0 79.7 79.0
1915 100.0 96.4 82.1 82.2
1916 83.0 83.0 82.4 84.8
1917 90.2 89.6 82.5 84.7
1918 95.1 93.7 86.4 90.4
1919 93.2 93.1 82.1 91.2
1920 101.6 104.5 81.0 86.1
1921 79.5 81.7 83.1 86.4
1922 91.1 92.0 89.3 92.4
1923 91.7 92.5 91.9 98.0
1924 99.0 97.6 91.2 99.7
1925 102.1 101.0 90.7 96.9
1926 109.5 107.3 95.0 97.8
1927 98.4 98.2 97.8 99.2
1928 108.0 107.6 98.4 100.6
1929 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
1930 99.3 98.0 101.2 99.9
1931 106.9 106.5 102.8 101.3
1932 94.5 94.3 103.2 100.1
1933 87.0 86.3. 104.4 104.1
1934 72.8 73.7 91.2 106.5
1935 90.6 90.6 93.3 93.3
1936 83.0 83.7 100.1 100.7
1937 121.3 119.7 97.4 98.3
1938 108.4 102.8 101.8
1939 111.1 109.0 109.4 107.0
For the National Bureau of Economic Research indexes see Table A-3,
above. For the Bureau of Agricultural Economics indexes see The FarmIn-
come Situation (U. S. Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Nov. 1941), p. 10.*

American Agriculture, 1899-1939: A Study of Output, Employment and Productivity

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