OH. 5 PLURALITY OF SECONDARY PRICE-LEVELS 69

Moreover, there is a good reason for expecting aWholesale Index to fluctuate more violently than aConsumption Index, inasmuch as the former is moreinfluenced by the prices of highly specialised items,whereas the latter takes more account of relativelyunspecialised services, such as transport and market-ing. For example, the prices of agricultural productsto the farmer vary much more widely than the pricesof the same products, which include transport andmarketing charges, to the consumer . 1

Over short periods there is the additional reasonfor discrepancies between the fluctuations of theWholesale Standard and the Consumption Standard,that unfinished goods, which are not available for con-sumption, have no value except what is derived fromtheir prospective value as constituents of finishedgoods, and therefore reflect, not to-day’s value forfinished goods, but their anticipated value at the datewhen there will have been time to complete the pro-cess of finishing the goods which are now unfinished.That the wholesale index-number is governed by theanticipated level of the consumption index-number ofsome subsequent date will be found to have practicalimportance when we reach the discussion of the creditcycle.

(ii.) International Standards

There are in the modern economic world a numberof articles of international trade which flow freelybetween one country and another, freight charges,tariffs and other obstacles being not sufficient toprevent this flow. For each country there is an index,which we may call its International Index, made upin practice of the principal standardised commodities,mainly raw materials, in which there is an inter-

1 Cf. my review of “ Inter-relationships of Supply and Prices ” byG. P. Warren and F. A. Pearson, in the Economic Journal (1929), p. 92.