Economic Theory: Weather & Wife

Economists seek explanations and enlightenment in statistics in much the same way some people do in Scripture —and occasionally they come up with fascinating little nuggets:

>American Investor, the magazine of the American Stock Exchange, last week reported a statistical study that shows that consumers are inexorably controlled by the weather in their buying habits. Statisticians found that every degree of temperature below normal on any day in spring, and every degree above normal on any day in fall, will cause retail sales to fall off exactly 1%. Furthermore, they reported, every one-tenth inch of rain that falls between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. on any day inevitably depresses sales by 1 % .

>Researchers at the Chase Manhattan Bank have played a new inning in the old game of calculating what a wife is worth. They figure that the average housewife works a 99.6-hour week, spending among other duties 44.5 hours as a nursemaid (at $1.25 an hour), 5.9 as a laundress (at $1.90), 13.1 hours as a cook (at $2.50). Even without overtime for work beyond 40 hours, the housewife's weekly pay would come to $159.34. Paid at competitive rates, most housewives would make as much as their husbands.