We study a newly constructed panel data set of relative prices of a large number of consumer goods among 31 European countries. We find that there is a substantial and non-diminishing deviation from PPP at all levels of aggregation, even among eurozone members. However, real exchange rates are...

some stylized facts relating the regional dispersion in headline inflation rates in the euro area as well as in the main components of the consumer price index. We find that a relatively large proportion of it occurs in the Service category of the EU's harmonized consumer price index (HICP). We...

From 1999 to 2003, Taiwan faced a deflationary situation. The reasons for this deflation can be attributed to both domestic and global factors. Domestic changes including local political unrest, tensions with China, outbound investment to China, a weakened financial system, and a deteriorating...

Inflation equals the product of two terms: an extensive margin (the fraction of items with price changes) and an intensive margin (the average size of those price changes). The variance of inflation over time can be decomposed into contributions from each margin. The extensive margin figures...

Hausman (2003) discusses four sources of bias in the present calculation of the CPI. A pure price' index based approach of surveying prices as done by the BLS cannot succeed in solving the problems of bias. We discuss economic and econometric approaches to measuring the first order bias effects...

The real exchange rate (RER) has been called the single most important price, yet its behavior exhibits several puzzles. In this project, we use Big Mac prices as a unique prism to study the movement of real exchange rates. Part of our innovation is to match these prices to the prices of...

In this paper, we investigate several key problems in Japanese economic statistics. We use CPI mismeasurements and biases as an example to explore the roots of the problems and also to offer guidelines for improvements. We emphasize 3 major shortcomings shared by many official statistics in...

Cross-country price indexes are crucial to compare living standards between countries and to measure global inequality. An accurate measurement of these price indexes is a difficult task because of the lack of accurate data on the consumption patterns of different countries. We construct a...

Since 1970, housing's relative price, share of expenditure, and ``unaffordability'' have all grown. We estimate housing demand using a novel compensated framework over space and an uncompensated framework over time. Our specifications pass tests imposed by rationality and household mobility....