In Germany, package holidays, which consist of a bundle of flight and accommodation services, are an important driver of consumer prices. Several challenges arise when measuring the price development of package holidays, for example the quality of accommodation, the timing of the booking, the...

Current HICP measurement practices produce an upward bias of about one-ninth of a percentage point in German inflation due to changing consumption being disregarded and the preliminary data being used in the compilation of expenditure weights. The statistical uncertainty produced by these...

Statistical offices try to match item models when measuring inflation between two periods. For product areas with a high turnover of differentiated models, however, the use of hedonic indexes is more appropriate since they include the prices and quantities of unmatched new and old models. The...

The Consumer Price Index Manual (2004) provides guidelines for aggregation formulas that are promulgated at IMF training courses and technical assistance missions. This paper develops elementary level aggregation theory to better inform users and compilers. Most countries use either the Dutot or...

Since late 1991, the IMF Statistics Department has conducted a program of technical assistance on consumer and producer price measurement and index compilation for the countries that have emerged from the former Soviet Union. These are countries whose economies are in various states of...

In this paper some of the practical issues related to improving the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) are discussed. The general problem of choosing an appropriate price index number formula is presented and both the axiomatic and economic theoretic approaches are used to examine the problem. An...

Our paper uses micro price data collected from Germany’s Consumer Price Index to compile a highly disaggregated regional price index for the 402 counties and cities of Germany. We introduce a multi-stage version of the weighted Country-Product- Dummy method. The unique quality of our price...

Over the last three decades the supply of economic statistics has vastly improved. Unfortunately, statistics on regional price levels (sub-national purchasing power parities) have been exempt from this positive trend, even though they are indispensable for meaningful spatial comparisons of...

Spatial price comparisons rely to a high degree on the quality of the underlying price data that are collected within or across countries. Below the basic heading level, these price data often exhibit large gaps. Therefore, stochastic index number methods like the CPDmethod and the GEKS method...

In Germany, package holidays are an important driver of consumer prices. Several challenges arise when measuring the price development of these bundled travel and accommodation services, such as the quality of accommodation and the timing of booking. Statistical practices are currently based on...