J. R. Bedford's Study of Family Income and Expenditure, 1849

Family budget surveys are known to have been initiated in India by G. F. Shirras in 1921-22. On the international plane, we know of the 1853 Belgian survey on which Ernst Engel based, in 1857, his famous law of consumption patterns. But not so well-known is the fact that J. R. Bedford, a British Officer in India, had conducted a study of monthly income and expenditure of a hundred families in Chittagong (now in Bangla Desh) for 1849. The following is a focus on the Bedford study in respect of theory, methodology and other substantive aspects of consumption.