Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: The Early History of Inflation Measurement -- Chapter 3: The Launch of the Index of Retail Prices -- Chapter 4: Improving the Index -- Chapter 5: The RPI in the Political Sphere -- Chapter 6: Reviews of the RPI and the Loss of National Statistics Status --...

The U.S. CPI is based on the Laspeyres price index, an index type that has an upward "substitution bias." Thus, the CPI tends to overstate increases in the cost of living. To address this bias, the Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Price Index recommended adopting for the CPI a...