Although inflation is much feared for its negative effects on the economy, how to measure it is a matter of considerable debate that has important implications for interest rates, monetary supply, and investment and spending decisions. Underlying many of these issues is the concept of the...

Aggregate under-reporting of household spending in the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) can result from two fundamental types of measurement errors: higher-income households (who presumably spend more than average) are under-represented in the CE estimation sample, or there is systematic...

Summary In 2002, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) introduced a supplemental C-CPI-U employing a superlative formula to provide a closer approximation to a cost-of-living index (COLI). This paper focuses on whether the BLS can improve upon the headline CPI-U’s current biennial weight...

This paper reconsiders an approach to inter-area house price index construction applied by Harvey Rosen in a recent article in Urban Studies. Rosen's cost function-based approach is shown to rely upon certain implicit assumptions regarding consumer preferences and housing production technology....

This article examines the impact of reimbursement on admissions by nursing homes. Low rates of payment for Medicaid patients suggest that nursing homes should prefer non-Medicaid patients. Such preferences are observable in daily admissions data from some of a sample of 18 Southern California...