This paper develops methods for assessing the sensitivity of empirical conclusions regarding conditional distributions to departures from the missing at random (MAR) assumption. We index the degree of nonignorable selection governing the missing data process by the maximal Kolmogorov–Smirnov...

The seeds for the 2007-09 financial collapse were sewn over many years and nurtured by ill-advised governmental housing policy, the presence of pervasive fraud both large and small and the widespread failure of personal integrity. A chronology of bad choices made by individuals and the...

The author summarizes the report’s methods, findings, and recommendations, and then reviews the comments and criticisms that appeared soon after the report was issued. Changes in CPI methodology are also summarized and assessed, as is recent research on related issues. Based on recent...

Historically, per capita income in the United States has exceeded those in Canada and this difference has reflected higher labour productivity levels south of the 49th parallel. In this article, Andrew Sharpe of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards provides estimates of the size of the...

The author provides a BLS response to the Boskin Commission from the perspective of ten years following the release of the report. He documents the research on price indexes done at the BLS in the first half of the 1990s that pointed to upward CPI bias, and discusses how these results eventually...

The author highlights the extremely salutatory effect the Boskin Commission has had on international price statistics, promoting open discussion of price measurement issues, engendering dialogue between statistical agencies and users, and encouraging research. Less positive in the author'sview...

The author supports the type of the back-of-the-envelope calculations of CPI bias that the Commission used so effectively to attract public attention to its report. In the area of quality adjustment, however, he criticizes the Boskin Commission for what he calls “premature extrapolation,”...

The author provides a political economy interpretation of the rise and fall of public interest in price measurement, placing these developments in the context of the attempt by Congress and the White House to deal with growing deficits in the early to mid-1990s. He provides a detailed discussion...

The third issue of the International Productivity Monitor produced by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards contains six articles that deal with a wide range of issues in the productivity area. Topics covered are the contribution of the information and communications technology sector to...

This the inaugural issue of the International Productivity Monitor, a new publication produced by the Ottawa-based Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS). The objective of the Monitor is to focus atttention on the importance of productivity for improving living standards and quality of...