This unit illustrates Engel’s Law, a very well established empirical regularity in economics. As an example, we use 10 household budgets from Basle, published by Carl Landolt (1891). The aim is to reproduce Engel’s Law with a scatter plot, learning about the possibilities and limitations of Excel. To obtain the necessary background information, it is required to work through the lesson Das Engelsche Gesetz.
The data can be found in the Swiss Economic and Social History Database, Tables T12-T21. If you do not know how to obtain access, you can work through a demonstration.