This paper sets out a general algorithm for calculating true cost-of-living indices or true producer price indices when demand is not homothetic, i.e. when not all expenditure elasticities are equal to one. In principle, economic theory tells us how we should calculate a true cost-of-living...

The Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) is the single most important indicator of inflation used by the European Central Bank. Sections 2 to 4 of the paper look at the theory of inflation indexes that could be used as target indexes of inflation. A Consumer Price Index (CPI) emerges as...

Citizens’ well-being depends both on their income levels and on the cost of living in their specific place of residence. However, very limited data are available on differences in price levels across geographical areas within a single country. This article presents a price index for Spanish...

This paper identifies the basic features of price setting behaviour at the producer level in the Spanish economy using a large dataset containing the micro data underlying the construction of the PPI over the period 1991-1999. It explores how these general features are affected by some specific...

This paper identifies the basic features of the price setting mechanism in the Spanish economy, using a large dataset that contains over 1.1 million price records and covers around 70% of the expenditure on the CPI basket. In particular, the paper identifies differences in the frequency and size...

The behavior of Spanish inflation rates at the provincial level (consumption prices) differs over the two spans of time considered in our study (1955.1–1978.6, 1978.7–2014.4). We point to a long list of institutional and economic changes, at national and international levels, as the...