Fifty Years of Economic Measurement: The Jubilee of the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth.

• Author: Craig, Lee A.

In 1935 the National Bureau of Economic Research, at the instigation of Simon Kuznets, attempted to establish a closer relationship with the economics departments of several leading universities. This endeavor lead to the formation of a Universities-NBER committee, and the following year the first Conference on Research in Income and Wealth (CRIW) emerged from these efforts. Fifty Years of Economic Measurement contains the papers and discussion presented at a jubilee commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of that first conference. Held in Washington in 1988 (and thus a couple of years late), the jubilee reviewed the research emanating from CRIW over the years and offered guidance concerning the direction of future research.

The volume begins with two chapters on the history of CRIW. The first chapter, by Carol Carson, outlines the early years of the conference which focused on the development of common terminology and concepts and the study of the distribution of income. The second chapter contains comments from five participants whose work appeared in the first volume of Studies in Income and Wealth, the series published by the conference. Among these, Milton Friedman, Robert R. Nathan, and Carl Shoup each note the vital role Simon Kuznets played in the advent and development of CRIW. Indeed, no one who reads the papers in this volume, or who reviews the other volumes that comprise Studies in Income and Wealth, can help but to recognize Kuznets's influence on the economics profession through the conference.

The main body of the volume contains nine chapters covering a variety of topics. While the coverage is quite broad, the organizers designed the mix of papers to depict the breadth of issues facing economic science and to portray milestones of past CRIW achievement. The issues addressed and the authors include: the measurement of productivity and its implications for analyzing economic growth by Dale Jorgenson, the theoretical and practical problems involved in the measurement of capital by Charles R. Hulten, issues in measuring and interpreting savings and wealth by Michael J. Boskin, two papers on hedonic price indexes, one by Zvi Griliches and one by Jack E. Triplett, a survey of the measurement of construction prices by Paul E. Pieper, data difficulties in labor economics by Daniel S. Hamermesh, a survey of issues relating to environmental policy by Clifford S. Russell and V. Kerry Smith, and a history of measuring tax burden by B.K...