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In article <92363.190800RHG@psuvm.psu.edu> RHG@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>In a book I'm writing about World War II, I refer to a number of
>governmental purchases--but the dollar figures don't mean much
>unless they are converted to 1992 dollars.  (If an item cost $1,000
>in 1945, how much would it cost today?)  I'm sure there are charts
>that show that kind of thing, but I can't find any in the Penn State
>library.
>
>But all I need is a conversion formula.  Does anyone out there have
>one?

Unfortunately, there are too many. You have to pick and choose. If you
want a rough indicator, you can use the prices of different duration
government debt (i.e. treasury bills, short and long bonds) as an indication
of how people view the value of a dollar. However, you particularly mention
purchasing power, which is often measured by pricing a standard shopping
basket of basic goods. Energy costs are very important over the period
you are interested in, as are metal costs, and these do quite different
things (oil goes up and metals go down). If I were in your place, I'd
skip the formula and look for the economist down the hall. Don't worry
about a formula, you will probably find useful graphs in the literature.

Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt

In article 190800RHG@psuvm.psu.edu, <RHG@psuvm.psu.edu> () writes:
> Perhaps this isn't the right discussion group, but it's the closest
> I can find to ask a question about inflation statistics.
> 
> In a book I'm writing about World War II, I refer to a number of
> governmental purchases--but the dollar figures don't mean much
> unless they are converted to 1992 dollars.  (If an item cost $1,000
> in 1945, how much would it cost today?)  I'm sure there are charts
> that show that kind of thing, but I can't find any in the Penn State
> library.

The question needs to be made more precise.  There are many measures of
inflation.  If, for example, you take as a definition of inflation what the
government calls CPI-U and look at the broadest measure, then the value of
$1,000 in 1945 would be worth about $7,750 in 1992 dollars.  (Some of my early data
are incomplete; so this may be a little bit off)

Data back to 1961 are readily available in Business Statistics.  Before that you
may have to scrounge.

 In article 190800RHG@psuvm.psu.edu, <RHG@psuvm.psu.edu> () writes:
 (If an item cost $1,000 in 1945, how much would it cost today?) 

Reference:
U.S. Department of Commerce. Historical Statistics of the United States,
Colonial Times to 1970, Washington: Bur. Census, 1975.


Another measure for comparing the expenses in different periods, which 
does not depend on the nominal price level, is the proportion of the whole 
income (for the U.S. the GNP) spent for some items then and now.
________________
Michael Hauser

University of Economics and Business Adminstration
Department for Applied Statistics and Data Processing
Augasse 2-6, 1090 Vienna, Austria

Tel. *43/1/31336 4759
email: hauser@wu-wien.ac.at

There are a number of ways of doing this, but almost all the standard ones
use the annually published Statistical Abstract of the United States, and track 
the Producer Price Index, various GNP deflators, or the Consumer Price Index.

Methods for adjusting dollars are explained therein.