IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/vrs/offsta/v32y2016i4p827-848n5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Statistical Capacity Building of Official Statisticians in Practice: Case of the Consumer Price Index

Author

Listed:
  • Deutsch Tomi

    (University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Economics, Kardeljeva ploščad 17, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia)

Abstract

This article focuses on the issue of statistical capacity building of official statisticians using the case of the consumer price index (CPI) as an illustrative example. Although used for indexation of salaries, pensions, and social welfare benefits, but also as an approximation of the general inflation rate, there are several unresolved methodological issues associated with CPI’s calculation. Apart from the choice among two alternative concepts, the challenge of how to include owner-occupied housing (OOH) in CPI has also not been adequately resolved yet. Analysis in the article is based on Slovenian data. The results show that accuracy of the CPI significantly improves if it is calculated using one of the superlative and symmetric formulas, and that it makes sense to include OOH in CPI using the total acquisitions approach. The analysis further indicates that the choice of the index formula for calculating CPI has a much greater impact on the CPI value than inclusion of OOH. Academic research findings such as these should not remain unknown to the wide professional community of official statisticians. Formal channels for knowledge transfer from academia to official statistics providers should be established to facilitate continuous statistical capacity building of official statisticians.

Suggested Citation

  • Deutsch Tomi, 2016. "Statistical Capacity Building of Official Statisticians in Practice: Case of the Consumer Price Index," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 32(4), pages 827-848, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:vrs:offsta:v:32:y:2016:i:4:p:827-848:n:5
    DOI: 10.1515/jos-2016-0043
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/jos-2016-0043
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/jos-2016-0043?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Boris Cournède, 2005. "House Prices and Inflation in the Euro Area," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 450, OECD Publishing.
    2. Paul Armknecht & Mick Silver, 2014. "Post-Laspeyres: The Case for a New Formula for Compiling Consumer Price Indexes," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(2), pages 225-244, June.
    3. McCarthy, Colm, 2007. "Owner-Occupied Housing Costs and Bias in the Consumer Price Index," Quarterly Economic Commentary: Special Articles, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), vol. 2007(3-Autumn), pages 83-88.
    4. W. Erwin Diewert, 2002. "Harmonized Indexes of Consumer Prices: Their Conceptual Foundations," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 138(IV), pages 547-637, December.
    5. Colm McCarthy, 2007. "Owner-Occupied Housing Costs and Bias in the Irish Consumer Price Index," Working Papers 200707, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    6. Kurz, Claudia & Hoffmann, Johannes, 2004. "A rental-equivalence index for owner-occupied housing in West Germany 1985 to 1998," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2004,08, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    7. Eurostat, 2013. "Handbook on Residential Property Prices Indices," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 17280, December.
    8. Diewert, W. E., 1976. "Exact and superlative index numbers," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 115-145, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Diewert, Erwin & Shimizu, Chihiro, 2015. "Residential Property Price Indices For Tokyo," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(8), pages 1659-1714, December.
    2. Erwin Diewert & John Greenlees & Charles R. Hulten, 2009. "Introduction: What Are the Issues?," NBER Chapters, in: Price Index Concepts and Measurement, pages 1-16, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Robert J. Hill & Alicia N. Rambaldi & Michael Scholz, 2021. "Higher frequency hedonic property price indices: a state-space approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 417-441, July.
    4. Herzberg, Julika & Knetsch, Thomas A. & Schwind, Patrick & Weinand, Sebastian, 2021. "Quantifying bias and inaccuracy of upper-level aggregation in HICPs for Germany and the euro area," Discussion Papers 06/2021, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    5. W. Erwin Diewert & Kiyohiko G. Nishimura & Chihiro Shimizu & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2020. "Measuring the Services of Durables and Owner Occupied Housing," Advances in Japanese Business and Economics, in: Property Price Index, chapter 0, pages 223-298, Springer.
    6. Kohli, Ulrich, 2004. "Real GDP, real domestic income, and terms-of-trade changes," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 83-106, January.
    7. W. Erwin Diewert, 2022. "Scanner Data, Elementary Price Indexes and the Chain Drift Problem," Springer Books, in: Duangkamon Chotikapanich & Alicia N. Rambaldi & Nicholas Rohde (ed.), Advances in Economic Measurement, chapter 0, pages 445-606, Springer.
    8. Mark A. Wynne, 2008. "How should central banks define price stability?," Globalization Institute Working Papers 08, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    9. Adam Gorajek, 2018. "Econometric Perspectives on Economic Measurement," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2018-08, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    10. Robert J Hill, 2004. "Inflation Measurement for Central Bankers," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Christopher Kent & Simon Guttmann (ed.),The Future of Inflation Targeting, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    11. Diewert, Erwin, 2019. "Quality Adjustment and Hedonics: A Unified Approach," Microeconomics.ca working papers erwin_diewert-2019-2, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 14 Mar 2019.
    12. Tödter, Karl-Heinz & Ziebarth, Gerhard, 2018. "Zinsen, Effektivpreise und Lebenskosten: Ein Beitrag zur Konstruktion eines intertemporalen Preisindex," IMFS Working Paper Series 123, Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS).
    13. Mark A. Wynne & Diego Rodriguez‐Palenzuela, 2004. "Measurement Bias in the HICP: What do we know and What do we need to know?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 79-112, February.
    14. Robert J. Hill & Alice O. Nakamura, 2010. "Improving Inflation And Related Performance Measures For Nations: An Introduction," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(s1), pages 1-10, June.
    15. Diewert, Erwin & Marandola, Tina, 2018. "Scanner Data, Elementary Price Indexes and the Chain Drift Problem," Microeconomics.ca working papers tina_marandola-2018-9, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 10 Oct 2018.
    16. Mick Silver, 2016. "How to Better Measure Hedonic Residential Property Price Indexes," IMF Working Papers 2016/213, International Monetary Fund.
    17. Iqbal A. Syed & Jan De Haan, 2017. "Age, Time, Vintage, And Price Indexes: Measuring The Depreciation Pattern Of Houses," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(1), pages 580-600, January.
    18. William A. Barnett, 2003. "Aggregation-Theoretic Monetary Aggregation over the Euro Area, when Countries are Heterogeneous," Macroeconomics 0309018, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Shimizu, Chihiro & Karato, Koji, 2016. "Property Price Index Theory and Estimation: A Survey," HIT-REFINED Working Paper Series 34, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    20. Diewert, W. Erwin & Nishimura , Kiyohiko & Shimizu, Chihiro & Watanabe, Tsutomu, 2014. "Residential Property Price Indexes for Japan: An Outline of the Japanese Official RPPI," Economics working papers erwin_diewert-2014-17, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 27 Mar 2014.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:vrs:offsta:v:32:y:2016:i:4:p:827-848:n:5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.sciendo.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.