Inflation is currently low and falling in the OECD area. A side effect of these facts is that they made harder the task of price index compilers. First of all, researchers and analysts are moving their attention from aggregate price dynamics to price differentials (among products, markets,...

Inflation, a macroeconomic variable, is underpinned by microeconomic data. This paper uses a large microdata sample at the unit level of South Africa’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the period 2001m12 to 2007m12 to begin to understand price setting conduct in South Africa. An understanding of...

Can one come up with the ‘hard science’ to show that part of the enviable ‘quality of life’ in certain provinces in Canada has to do with the differential ‘purchasing power’ of their residents? Although the mean level of earnings/income per annum is lower/higher in certain provinces...

There are a lot of studies that test Ballasa –Samuelson hypothesis also known as Harrod-BalassaSamuelson effect directly via the effect of productivity, one possible explanation is that PER Capita GDP is not good explanation for productivity (.i.e. Labor productivity) differences; an increase...

Quality adjustment of price indexes affects the analysis of many sensitive economic issues, such as real growth, productivity, international competitiveness, real wages, per-capita consumption and poverty, other than inflation. Hedonic methods are often recommended and increasingly used in the...

A research project to determine whether the full bench of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission consistently bases its decision to award a minimum wage increase equal to, above or below the percentage increase in the consumer price index, on given economic and political factors.

One of the most common myths in European economic history, and indeed in Economics itself, is that the Black Death of 1347-48, followed by other waves of bubonic plague, led to an abrupt rise in real wages, for both agricultural labourers and urban artisans – one that led to the so-called...

The paper probed the impact of supply of money on food and general price indices by estimating a series of equations taking CPI food, CPI general, WPI food, WPI general, GDP deflator and SPI as measures of inflation and M1, M2 and M3 supply of money as explanatory variables. For analysis, OLS...

Many studies have shown the importance of tourism industry in enhancing trade performance and economic development. This study examines the hypothesis of ‘economic-driven’ tourism growth in Malaysia by using econometric modelling. To generate the empirical analysis, this study used data from...

This paper investigates the concept of vector autoregression (VAR) and cointegration using a bivariate model of global oil prices and headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) in South Africa. The study aims to determine how much of inflation is driven by oil prices. Particular attention is paid to...