First discussions on several topics of this book took place at a symposium held at the University of Karlsruhe (July 14 - 21, 1985). The book is divided into nine parts with the headings "Methodology and Methods" (4 papers), "Prices" (9), "Efficiency" (5), "Preferences" (7), "Quality" (2), "Inequality" (6), "Taxation" (6), "Aggregation" (6), and "Econometrics" (6). The topics range from the "equation of measurement", a functional equation which plays an important role in the subject, through various approaches to price, efficiency, inequality and tax progression measurement to results on consistency, efficiency and separability in aggregation, productivity measurement, cost functions, allocation inefficiencies, key sector indices, and testing of integrability conditions in econometrics. There are applications to the economies of the U.S.A., Japan and Germany. It contains also papers which deal with preferences, environmental quality and with noxiousness of substances.
