Editing Price index (section)

== History of early price indices ==
[[File:WilliamFleetwood.jpg|thumb|William Fleetwood]]
The origins of price indices are debated, with no clear consensus on their inventor. The earliest reported research in this area came from [[Rice Vaughan]], who in his 1675 book [http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/vaughan/coin ''A Discourse of Coin and Coinage''] analyzed price level changes in England. Vaughan sought to distinguish inflation from precious metals imported by [[Spain]] from the [[New World]] from effects of [[Debasement|currency debasement]]. By comparing labor statutes from his era to those under [[Edward III]] (e.g., [[Statute of Labourers of 1351]]), he used wage levels as a proxy for a basket of goods, concluding prices had risen six- to eight-fold over a century.<ref name="Chance, 10822">Chance, 108.</ref> Though a pioneer, Vaughan did not actually compute an index.<ref name="Chance, 10822" />

In 1707, Englishman [[William Fleetwood]] developed perhaps the first true price index. Responding to an Oxford student facing loss of a fellowship due to a 15th-century income cap of five pounds, Fleetwood used historical price data to create an index of averaged price relatives. His work, published anonymously in ''Chronicon Preciosum'', showed the value of five pounds had shifted significantly over 260 years.<ref>Chance, 108–9</ref>