Part of the cost-of-professors involves the costs of attending professional meetings. Just for a back-of-the-envelope calculation of how hotel rates have changed, we see that the headquarters hotel for the 1924 AEA meeting was The Congress where a double room (with private bath) cost $6.00 and up. (The rates quoted below appear to be day rates when one compares with rates quoted, e.g. for the La Salle Hotel, in The Official Hotel Red Book and Directory 1920.)
A quick check of Booking.com and Orbitz gives rates for today at The Congress Plaza Hotel “from $149”. I presume that rate is for double-occupancy-with-bath as well. We have an increase of $149/$6.00, a nearly 25-fold increase in the price over a 91 year period, about an average 3.5% annual rate of increase. OK, maybe the TV, phone and internet connections plus all that shampoo and conditioner should be adjusted for so this is an overstatement of hotel rate inflation.
Over the same period the Consumer Price Index for the U.S. has grown nearly 14-fold, about an average annual rate of increase of 2.9%. Of course there is room for discussion about how well this particular index handles the changing market baskets and quality differences over nearly a century.
More historical images of the Congress Hotel.
Postcard of the Auditorium Hotel.
Postcard of the Sherman Hotel.
Source: Announcement of the Thirty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association to be held at Chicago, Illinois, beginning Sunday Evening, December 38, and closing at Noon Wednesday, December 31. 1924. Issue of November 10. From the University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics Records, Box 22, folder 8.