The present paper provides an objective basis for selecting the best among four commonly used price index numbers, namely the Laspeyres price index, the Paasche price index, the simple aggregative price index and the simple arithmetic mean of price relatives. The criterion is developed within a...

In this paper we compared the nonparametric kernel estimates and the ARIMA estimates of Canadian inflationary expectations. The kernel estimates turned out to be superior with respect to post-sample predictions irrespective of the method used for selecting the bandwith.

In this paper, an upper bound of the Gini index, based on grouped data, is proposed assuming that there is no information on all the group mean incomes as well as the overall mean income but the limits of the income brackets are known. An important advantage of this proposal is that conventional...

In this paper, bounds of the Gini index, based on grouped data, are proposed assuming sparse information on mean incomes in the sense that data on either the overall mean income or some of the group mean incomes are not reported. It turns out that the proposed bounds are identical to those...

The potential shortcomings of the regression (or stochastic) approach for computing exact standard errors of the Gini coefficient using ordinary least squares or weighted least squares are pointed out. Copyright 2004 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.