A monthly consumer price index traces changes in the monthly cost of a year’s consumption using a sample of prices. But in some months the prices that can be sampled will temporarily exclude some of the products that were bought in the base year, Christmas trees providing a textbook...

There is a high degree of symmetry between economic goods and economic bads. Snow, litter and street mud are cited as examples. Economic growth obviously results in an increase in the supply of bads as well as goods. In addition, however, because it raises the value of time it can turn goods...

Economic growth may involve change, but there can be change without economic growth insofar as outputs of some products or employment in some regions or industries grows while there are equal decreases elsewhere. National accounts data do not reveal such shifts, yet they may involve investment...

The treatment of owner-occupied dwellings in Consumer Price Indexes varies between countries and is the subject of continuing controversy. Ralph Turvey explains the alternative possible treatments and reasons for disagreement.