4to. Contemporary green cloth (some light staining and wear, hinges reinforced, few leaves sprung with light marginal chipping); quarter green morocco folding case gilt Provenance: Herbert C. Adler (ownership signature, 1919).

FIRST EDITION of Mitchell's classic work on business cycles. For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, economic theory rarely employed the use of statistics. Mitchell made "a more self-conscious attempt to make new statistical discovery subserve the evolution of theory...that of the business cycle" (Roll 463). He directed the National Bureau of Economic Research, stimulating fresh factual work in all branches of Economics. He perceived the booms and busts of a capitalist economy to be one of the most troubling economic and social problems.