The purpose of this research is to analyze methodologies for calculation of price indexes for cargo freight in Brazil. The study on the most used mathematical formulas has come to the conclusion that Fisher and Walsh indexes are those which comply with most of the logical, statistical and economic principles, followed by geometric indexes, such as Törnqvist, Vartia and Theil. Laspeyres and Paasche, in spite of their limitations, are widely used in practical terms. A case study was selected to evaluate variations on possible procedures for index construction. Four treatments have been conducted. As a result, we observed that the accumulated variation of the general price level for road transportation of soybean in Brazil between February 1998 and March 2002 was 76%.
index; price; transportation
