This thesis explores whether scanner data can be used to inform Consumer Price Index (CPI) construction, with particular reference to the issues of substitution bias and choice of aggregation dimensions. The potential costs and benefits of using scanner data are reviewed. Existing estimates of...

Conventional wisdom suggests that producer prices are more rigid than consumer prices and therefore play less of a role in the allocation of goods and services. Analyzing 1987-2008 microdata collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for the producer price index, we find that producer...

Changing product quality poses a challenge for the computation of price indexes, in particular in technologically advanced industries. We assess the differences between traditional and quality-corrected indexes by computing hedonic and matched-model price indexes for personal computer database...

This text proposes three adaptations related to disaggregations in the Brazilian National Consumer Price Index (IPCA) in order to provide relevant data for studies on inflation in disaggregated cuts, in monthly periodicity from August 1999 to September 2014. In the first, the compatibilization...

In this paper we discuss statistical inference associated with the theoretical model developed in Part I. Specifically, we demonstrate how the relationship between the distribution of prices and unit values can be exploited to estimate some of the structural parameters. These estimates are...

This paper discusses the properties of price- and Cost-of-Living indexes that follow from specific assumptions about the structure of consumer preferences. Of particular interest are indexes for elementary aggregates. In the first part of the paper we show how particular indexes for elementary...

Summary It is often the case that the value of a number of somewhat similar units (e. g., automobiles of a certain general type) is divided by the number of units in order to form a unit value price and these unit value prices are compared over two periods in order to form a unit value price...

In many instances the consumer faces choice settings where the alternatives are discrete. Examples include choice between variants of differentiated products, urban transportation modes, residential locations, types of education, etc. So far, a Slutsky equation for discrete choice models has not...

We construct a price index with weights for the prices of different PCE (personal consumption expenditures) goods chosen to minimize the welfare costs of nominal distortions. In this cost-of-nominal-distortions index (CONDI), the weights are computed in a multi-sector New Keynesian model with...