IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v45y2013i20p2894-2908.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring CPI's reliability: the stochastic approach to index numbers revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Kuo-Yuan Liang
  • Chen-Hui Yen

Abstract

The reliability measurement of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has recently drawn much attention, as the index number has been criticized for its inaccuracy in accessing the degree of inflation. This article centers on providing a new regression specification that can help better gauge the CPI's reliability. More specifically, based on the stochastic approach to index numbers, we argue that the conventional treatment of the systematic changes in relative prices should be made time variant. We therefore propose a more comprehensive regression specification by including additional dummies that represent different general inflation rate levels and business cycle phases. Under this framework, we are more capable of avoiding possible misspecifications in the regression equation, as was experienced by Clements and Izan (1987). It also allows us to better answer the ‘Keynes’ critic’ regarding the stochastic approach to index numbers. The empirical results of Australia and the US are used to validate the merit of our specification.

Suggested Citation

  • Kuo-Yuan Liang & Chen-Hui Yen, 2013. "Measuring CPI's reliability: the stochastic approach to index numbers revisited," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(20), pages 2894-2908, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:45:y:2013:i:20:p:2894-2908
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2012.687097
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2012.687097
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036846.2012.687097?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frederick C. Mills, 1927. "Introduction to "The Behavior of Prices"," NBER Chapters, in: The Behavior of Prices, pages 31-36, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Frederick C. Mills, 1927. "The Behavior of Prices," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number mill27-1, July.
    3. Frederick C. Mills, 1927. "Appendix to "The Behavior of Prices"," NBER Chapters, in: The Behavior of Prices, pages 441-586, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xiao, Jiang & Wang, Minggang & Tian, Lixin & Zhen, Zaili, 2018. "The measurement of China’s consumer market development based on CPI data," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 490(C), pages 664-680.

    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. Maarten Dossche, 2009. "Understanding Inflation Dynamics.Where Do We Stand?," Review of Business and Economic Literature, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Review of Business and Economic Literature, vol. 0(2), pages 209-227.
    2. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2013. "Price Rigidity: Microeconomic Evidence and Macroeconomic Implications," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 133-163, May.
    3. Juan Jiménez & Jordi Perdiguero, 2012. "Does Rigidity of Prices Hide Collusion?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 41(3), pages 223-248, November.
    4. Khan, Muhammad, 2016. "Evidence on the functional form of inflation and output growth variability relationship in European economies," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 1-11.
    5. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson & Patrick Sun & Daniel Villar, 2018. "The Elusive Costs of Inflation: Price Dispersion during the U.S. Great Inflation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1933-1980.
    6. Morakinyo Akinola & Muller Colette & Sibanda Mabutho, 2018. "Non-Performing Loans, Banking System and Macroeconomy," Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Oeconomica, Sciendo, vol. 63(2), pages 67-86, August.
    7. Pinelopi K. Goldberg & Rebecca Hellerstein, 2009. "How rigid are producer prices?," Staff Reports 407, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    8. Carlton, Dennis W, 1986. "The Rigidity of Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 637-658, September.
    9. Alan Kackmeister, 2007. "Yesterday's Bad Times Are Today's Good Old Times: Retail Price Changes Are More Frequent Today Than in the 1890s," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(8), pages 1987-2020, December.
    10. Zigrand, Jean-Pierre, 2014. "Systems and systemic risk in finance and economics," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 61220, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. John W. Keating & Isaac K. Kanyama, 2015. "Is sticky price adjustment important for output fluctuations?," Review of Keynesian Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 3(3), pages 392-418, July.
    12. Fantazzini, Dean, 2020. "Discussing copulas with Sergey Aivazian: a memoir," MPRA Paper 102317, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Matthias R. Fengler & Joachim K. Winter, 2007. "Price variability and price dispersion in a stable monetary environment: evidence from German retail markets," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 789-801.
    14. Menezes, Flavio M. & Quiggin, John, 2022. "Market power amplifies the price effects of demand shocks," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    15. Michael Aarstol, 1999. "Inflation, Inflation Uncertainty, and Relative Price Variability," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 66(2), pages 414-423, October.
    16. Cleomar Gomes da Silva & Gilberto O. Boaretto, 2018. "Inflation and Relative Price Variability in Brazil: A Time-Varying Parameter Approach," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(4), pages 1947-1956.
    17. Bryce Kanago, 2023. "The Comovement Between Forecast Errors for Real GDP and Its Deflator in Six OECD Countries: Did Supply Shocks Become Less Dominant During the Great Moderation?," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 19(2), pages 149-169, September.
    18. Debelle, Guy & Lamont, Owen, 1997. "Relative Price Variability and Inflation: Evidence from U.S. Cities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 132-152, February.
    19. Chen, Bin & Hong, Yongmiao, 2014. "A unified approach to validating univariate and multivariate conditional distribution models in time series," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 178(P1), pages 22-44.
    20. Thilo A. Schmitt & Rudi Schafer & Holger Dette & Thomas Guhr, 2015. "Quantile Correlations: Uncovering temporal dependencies in financial time series," Papers 1507.04990, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:applec:v:45:y:2013:i:20:p:2894-2908. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    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.