TY  - JOUR
AU  - Romer,Christina
AU  - Miron,Jeffrey A.
TI  - A New Monthly Index of Industrial Production, 1884-1940
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 3172
PY  - 1989
Y2  - November 1989
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3172
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3172.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Christina D. Romer
Department of Economics
University of California, Berkeley
549 Evans Hall, #3880
Berkeley, CA 94720
Tel: 510/642-4317
Fax: 510/642-6615
E-Mail: cromer@econ.berkeley.edu

Jeffrey A. Miron
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 781/856-0086
Fax: 617/495-8570
E-Mail: miron@fas.harvard.edu
AB  - The paper derives a new monthly index of industrial production for the United States for 1884-1940. This index improves upon existing measures of industrial production by excluding indirect proxies of industrial activity, by only using component series that are consistent over time, and by not making ad hoc adjustments to the data. Analysis of the new index shows that it has more within-year volatility than conventional indexes, has relatively unimportant seasonal fluctuations, and has cyclical turning points that are grossly similar to but subtly different from existing series. 
ER  -