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 --...

This paper provides a justification for hedonic price indices and details the properties of hedonic price functions. The analysis is done in a market setting in which a finite number of goods, each defined by its characteristics, interact. We note that proper hedonic indices can be constructed...

This paper investigates the use of high-frequency scanner data to construct price indexes. In the presence of inventory behavior, purchases and consumption by individuals differ over time. Cost-of-living indexes can still be constructed using data on purchases. For weekly data on canned tuna,...