Conference on National Income and WealthSource: Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 31, No. 193 (Mar., 1936), pp. 130-131Published by: American Statistical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2278338 .

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130 AMERICAN STATISTICAL AssoCIATION*

and accountants, in the study of actual price changes, cost movements and price-making policies in specific industries and in distributive enterprises. It was recognized that some of the gravest gaps in our knowledge of eco- nomic processes are due to inadequacies of data and of analysis respecting costs, prices, and pricing under the conditions actually prevailing in in- dustry and trade today. No great centralized project, calling for large new grants of research funds, is contemplated in this field. It is expected that the investigation of price problems in industry and trade will be conducted co6peratively, by the groups affiliated with the Conference, and that several studies centering on specific industries will be financed by funds provided by the individual institutions. The Conference on Price Research is eager to promote such a cooperative attack upon problems of vital concern alike to business men and to economists.

Success in the study of the price problems of industry and trade will de- pend in large part upon securing the active cooperation of accountants, engineers and men actively engaged in formulating the price policies of American business enterprises. As a first step in this enterprise, the Execu- tive Committee of the Price Conference proposes to call a conference of representatives of these groups, and of interested economists.

As circumstances permit, it is expected that the Conference will actively support other research projects. Meanwhile, it will attempt to give unity and force to the activities of research workers in this field throughout the country, and to stimulate the accumulation, on a broader and sounder basis, of the factual material essential to the success of such research.

CONFERENCE ON NATIONAL INCOME AND WEALTH Increasingly aware of the values that lie in its collaboration with other

research agencies, the National Bureau followed up its conference on price research with one on national income and wealth. The primary task was to afford the students in these fields the opportunity of becoming more fa- miliar with the work in process or contemplated at the various institutions of discussing the various conceptual and statistical problems raised by the current studies, and of arriving at a common opinion as to what projects relating to national income and wealth seemed most urgent and most practi- cable for co6perative attack. The conference was held at the National Bu- reau on January 31 and February 1, and included representatives from the Universities of Harvard, Chicago, Columbia, Minnesota, and Wisconsin; from the Central Statistical Board; the Bureaus of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, of Agricultural Economics, of Labor Statistics; Division of Research and Statistics of the Treasury; Division of Research of the Federal Reserve Board; Consumers' Expenditures Study of the Industrial Division of the National Resources Committee; and the National Industrial Confer- ence Board.

Upon preliminary discussion, the problems in the field were grouped for more intensive analysis by three committees: one to deal with objectives, concepts and terminology; the second to explore questions of data and pro-

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* NOTES 131

cedures, arising in the estimates of national income and related wealth items by industrial sources and by type of payment; the third to discuss areas of the income and wealth fields still largely unexplored, i.e. primarily distribu- tion of income by size among individuals or families, regional distribution of income, and estimates of wealth and their different classifications. Each committee made definite recommendations, some of which are listed below. The first committee recommended the establishment of a set of bench-mark years (1899, 1909, 1919, 1929, 1935) for which specially detailed breakdowns of income and wealth estimates could be provided, these detailed estimates being intended as guides with which reconciliation could be attempted by students in the field. Another recommendation of the first committee was that, as part of a continuing organization, a section be provided to act as a clearing house for proposed terminology and concepts and schemes of classi- fication. The second committee commented upon the inadequacies of the industrial and type-of-payment classifications now employed, and recom- mended a careful consideration of the problems of these classifications by a continuing cooperative organization. This organization should attempt to stimulate both the data-collecting authorities and students in the field to fill gaps or remedy inconsistencies in the currently available data; and to devote more attention to those parts of the economic system, such as govern- ment and finance, in which income and wealth estimates encounter espe- cially acute conceptual problems. The third committee emphasized the im- portance of obtaining a reliable distribution of income and wealth by size among individuals and families continuous for a number of years, and the advisability of combining it with a regional classification. It called atten- tion to the state income and other tax data available in the files of state agencies, and to other relevant data which are not regularly published by the authorities collecting them and recommended a preliminary exploration of these fields, prior to the organization of a co6perative research project that would attack the problems directly. These recommendations, among others, were adopted by the Conference after prolonged discussion.

Towards the ends of defining objectives, clarifying concepts, and making and stimulating studies in the field, a continuing organization, to be known as the Conference on National Income and Wealth, was set up on a basis similar to that of the Conference on Price Research, and for similar pur- poses. To carry these out an Executive Committee composed of Simon Kuznets, chairman; M. A. Copeland, W. L. Crum, Aaron Director, H. M. Groves, A. W. Marget and R. R. Nathan was elected.

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