Given the highly kurtotic and positively skewed characteristics of cross-sectional distribution of price, asymmetric trimmed-mean is the best approach in extracting the statistical medium-term trend of inflation. This paper uses asymmetric trimmed-mean approach to measure core inflation in...

This paper assesses the performance of the core inflation measures calculated by the Brazilian Central Bank (BCB). The evidence shows that they do not meet some key statistical criteria that a good core inflation should have: unbiasedness and the ability to forecast inflation. That performance...

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,...

Housing co-operatives, also known as “tenant-owner co-operative housing”, provide an alternative to both renting and owning a dwelling. As an indirect form of ownership, it poses some conceptual and practical issues to anyone aiming at compiling a price index covering all forms of...

Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz has criticized chain indices and Irving Fisher's time and factor reversal tests. However, his arguments (published in German articles) though well ahead of his time and still relevant today are widely fallen in oblivion. He was not the only German statistician who...

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...

Stochastic approach to index number (and its change) has recently attracted renewed attention of researchers as it provides the standard error of index number (and its change). One of the most important uses of index number is in the case of measurement of the general price level in an economy...

This paper explores the extent to which goods follow systematic pricing patterns over their life cycle. The theoretical literature, and anecdotal evidence, often suggests that new products are often introduced at high prices which decline as the good ages while, older goods exit the market at a...

The fact that the famous price index of Laspeyres is unable to pass the so called inversion test (IT) gave rise to the idea that this formula tends to measure "spurious inflation" which renders it useless and fallacious. In the IT prices and quantities of n goods, relating to two periods, the...

In the U.S., the objective of consumer price index (CPI) measurement is to measure the cost of living. However, the current CPI or, in other words, cost of living index (COLI) measures the cost of living in a static optimization problem. This paper proposes a new method to construct a dynamic...