A Note on the Wholesale Price Index in 1960-61

In this note an attempt is made to extend the wholesale price index prepared in the Institute of Development Economics1 to 1960-61. That index, which was computed for the East and West wings separately and for the whole of Pakistan, covered a period of nine years from 1951-52 to 1959-60 (July-June) with 1951-52 as the base year. The West Pakistan index covers 35 commodities while the commodities included in East Pakistan index number 25. The weights for each wing are derived from the net quantity available to final users in each year. It should be remembered that this whole¬sale price index is not an all-purpose general price index; its coverage and scope are limited. It is a measure of annual wholesale price changes for certain goods in East and in West Pakistan. Further details of the index may be found in the monograph cited in footnotel. The present index for 1960-61 is computed by the Laspeyres formula alone as it was not possible to calculate the Paasche index without information on quantities available during 1960-61.2 For the same reason it is not possible to extend the analysis of quantity indices previously presented for both wings of Pakistan.3