Some prices indexes for Quebec and Montreal (1760-1913)

The study of price trends is of paramount importance to the economist and t he historian interested in the socio-economies of the pre-industrial era. I n Canada, many historians have collected various regional price data for th e latter part of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteent h, but we are still lacking a consistent and composite price index that cou ld help to extract the trends in real income, real production, and real wea lth for the century before Confederation. A set of price indexes for the ci ties of Quebec and Montreal from 1761 to 1867 helps fill this gap. In the c ase of Quebec, these indexes are drawn from the data for 20 products over 1 06 years, while for Montreal (where sources are more limited) they are base d on data for 10 products over 101 years. We extended the series price inde xes for Quebec to 1913 by splicing it with Humfrey Michell's price indexes for the latter part of the nineteenth century.