The Hamilton method for estimating CPI bias is simple, intuitive, and has been widely adopted. We show that the method confiates CPI bias with variation in cost-of-living across income levels. Assuming a single price index across the income distribution is inconsistent with the downward sloping...

The Hamilton method for estimating CPI bias is simple, intuitive, and has been widely adopted. We show that the method confiates CPI bias with variation in cost-of-living across income levels. Assuming a single price index across the income distribution is inconsistent with the downward sloping...

We create a new weekly index of retail trade that accurately predicts the U.S. Census Bureau's Monthly Retail Trade Survey (MRTS). The index's weekly frequency provides an early snapshot of the MRTS and allows for a more granular analysis of the aggregate consumer response to fast-moving events...

Recent advances in the collective model literature suggest ways to estimate the complete allocation of resources within households, using assignable goods and assuming adult preference similarity across demographic groups (or across spouses). While it makes welfare analysis at the individual...

We propose a method to quantify other-regarding preferences in group decisions. Our method is based on revealed preference theory. It measures willingness-to- pay for others’ consumption and willingness-to-pay for equality in consumption by evaluating consumption externalities in monetary...

The share of private consumption in gross domestic product is significant; therefore, private consumption has a great influence on economic growth, which makes it a major concept in economics. The purpose of the paper is to estimate and evaluate different forecasting models for private...

A puzzling development over the past 15 years is decline in Total Factor Productivity in many advanced economies. Part of this decline may be due to the rapid growth of free digital goods. Statistical agencies have no reliable way to measure the benefits of the introduction of free goods. This...

The existence of durable goods implies that the welfare flow from consumption cannot be directly associated with total consumption expenditures. As a result, tests of standard theories of consumption (such as the Permanent Income Hypothesis, or PIH) typically focus on nondurable goods and...

This study proposes a new measure of the tradability of 120+ commodities based on price dispersion. This approach is used to construct price indices of tradables and non-tradables for 150+ countries. The expenditure share of tradables is lower for richer countries, while the relative price of...

This study has adopted the actual household expenditure data from the national accountstoconstruct a true inflation rate (using the Fisher index) and found that the official inflationrateinthe 33 OECD countries was an overestimate of true inflation for 22 and underestimate in11countries in the...