This paper provides a brief introduction to a proposed new opportunity cost treatment of owner occupied housing in measures of inflation for the United States. In addition, the paper introduces, and provides links to, a collection of nine other papers that discuss various aspects of the...

Van Veelen and van der Weide (2008) in a recent paper provided some interesting new perspectives on the index number problem. However, the present paper argues that their definitions of a true index and an exact index are different from the standard definitions in the literature. The differences...

Statistical agencies in different nations usually use the rental equivalence approach to the treatment of housing in their CPIs but a few countries use the user cost approach. The paper argues that an opportunity cost approach is the correct theoretical framework for accounting for OOH in a CPI....

The paper reviews and extends the theory of exact and superlative index numbers. Exact index numbers are empirical index number formula that are equal to an underlying theoretical index, provided that the consumer has preferences that can be represented by certain functional forms. These exact...

The traditional economic approach to index number theory is based on a ratio concept. The Konüs true cost of living index is a ratio of cost functions evaluated at the same utility level but with the prices of the current period in the cost function that appears in the numerator and the prices...

The paper uses hedonic regression techniques in order to decompose the price of a house into land and structure components using readily available real estate sales data for a Dutch city. In order to get sensible results, it was useful to use a nonlinear regression model using data that covered...

The paper uses data on sales of detached houses in a small Dutch town over 14 quarters starting at the first quarter of 2005 in order to compare various methods for constructing a house price index over this period. Four classes of methods are considered: (i) stratification techniques plus...

The paper studies the problems associated with the construction of price indexes for commercial properties that could be used in the System of National Accounts. Property price indexes are required for the stocks of commercial properties in the Balance Sheets of the country and related price...

The paper studies the problems associated with the construction of price indexes for commercial properties that could be used in the System of National Accounts. Property price indexes are required for the stocks of commercial properties in the Balance Sheets of the country and related price...

Fluctuations in housing prices have substantial economic impacts. Thus, it is essential to develop housing price indexes that can adequately capture housing market trends. However, construction of such indexes is very difficult due to the fact that residential properties are heterogeneous and do...