A new area of research involves the use of normalized and scaled Google search volume data to predict economic activity. This new source of data holds both many advantages as well as disadvantages. Daily and weekly data are employed to show the effect of aggregation in Google data, which can...

Consumers often face choice settings in which alternatives are discrete. Examples include choices between variants of differentiated products, modes of urban transportation, residential locations, etc. In this paper compensated price elasticities and a corresponding(aggregate) Slutsky equation...

A common approach to analyze count time series is to fit models based on random sum operators. As an alternative, this paper introduces time series models based on a random multiplication operator, which is simply the multiplication of a variable operand by an integer-valued random coefficient,...

This paper develops a new framework for empirical modelling of consumer demand with particular reference to products that are differentiated with respect to quality and location attributes. The point of departure is a flexible representation of the distribution of product attributes and consumer...

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 construction and computation of a quality adjusted price index when the commodities are differentiated products, such as different brands of automobiles and refrigerators. The method we focus on is an extension of Trajtenberg's approach. A key result obtained in the...

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...

The Boskin report (1996) concluded that the US consumer price index (CPI) overestimated the inflation by 1.1 percentage points. This was due to several measurement errors in the CPI. One of them is called quality change bias. We compare two methods in this paper which can be used to correct for...

The aim of this article is to develop a methodology for a spatial or regional cost index of housing that considers spatial differentials across regions. Using microdata from the Chilean survey CASEN 2003, it is showed that a spatial or regional housing pr

Este documento busca identificar los determinantes de acceso al crédito de los hogares colombianos y encuentra que características tales como el ingreso, la riqueza, la posición geográfica, el acceso a la seguridad social, el nivel de educación y la edad afectan la probabilidad de ser...