Der Aufsatz gibt einen Überblick über die Quellen von Verzerrungen des US-amerikanischen Konsumentenpreisindexes (CPI) nach oben und unten und diskutiert die Massnahmen, die das Bureau of Labor Statistics ergriffen hat, um sie zu beseitigen. Die verbliebenen Verzerrungen werden quantifiziert....

"A recent literature has advanced the use of Engel curves to estimate overall CPI bias. In this paper, I show that the methodology is sensitive to the modeling of household demography. Existing estimates of CPI bias do not account for the changing effect of household size on budget shares, and...

This paper provides the first estimates of overall CPI bias prior to the 1970s and new estimates of bias since the 1970s. It finds that annual CPI bias was -0.1 percent between 1888 and 1919 and rose to 0.7 percent between 1919 and 1935. Annual CPI bias was 0.4 percent in the 1960s and then rose...

Modern consumer theories are built upon the premise of the forward looking behavior of households. While most of the empirical studies at micro level are based on Euler equation, there have been few to estimate the household consumption function and test the implication of forward looking...

Whelan (2007) found that the generalized Calvo-sticky-price model fails to replicate a typical feature of the empirical reduced-form Phillips curve - the positive dependence of inflation on its own lags. In this paper, I show hat it is the 4-period-Taylor-contract hazard function he chose that...

With the unemployment rate in the United States currently below estimates of its natural rate we examine if the relationship between inflation and unemployment is nonlinear. Using aggregate data we are unable to reject a linear relationship. However, using metropolitan-level data we find the...