IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpda/9612001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Statistics Under The Spotlight: Improving The Consumer Price Index

Author

Listed:
  • William A. Barnett

    (Washington University)

  • Katharine G. Abraham

    (Commissioner, Bureau of Labor Statistics)

  • Robert J. Gordon

    (Northwestern University)

  • Jack E. Triplett

    (Bureau of Economic Analysis, Dept. of Commerce)

  • David W. Wilcox

    (Federal Reserve Board)

  • Kirk M. Wolter

    (NORC and U. of Chicago)

Abstract

The position taken by William Barnett in this panel discussion is that federal government agencies, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, view researchers as being among those who comprise the audience for produced data, but not necessarily the most important members of that audience. Recently political pressures from Congress have been at center stage. Barnett takes the position that more focus on the data needs of economic researchers and econometricians would result in substantial gains in data quality and sample size available to economists. As an example to illustrate his point, he displays the results possible by linking Commerce Department data with the early NBER data of Simon Kuznets to produce a data base covering a much longer period of time than is included in the official Commerce Department data alone. The panel discussion that follows Barnett's taped comments emphasizes the concerns of the Commission that recently announced its recommendations regarding revision of the CPI.

Suggested Citation

  • William A. Barnett & Katharine G. Abraham & Robert J. Gordon & Jack E. Triplett & David W. Wilcox & Kirk M. Wolter, 1996. "Statistics Under The Spotlight: Improving The Consumer Price Index," Data 9612001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpda:9612001
    Note: Type of Document - Microsoft Word; prepared on Macintosh; to print on PostScript; pages: 10 ; figures: included (10). This document includes the transcript of a tape recorded statement by William A. Barnett and the following panel discussion on the subject of the Consumer Price Index. The tape recording was from an invited session at the annual meetings of the American Statistical Association in Chicago in 1996. This full transcript will appear in the American Statistical Association 1996 Proceedings of the Section on Government Statistics. See http://econwpa.wustl.edu:80/~barnett/ on the web.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/data/papers/9612/9612001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/data/papers/9612/9612001.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/data/papers/9612/9612001.ps.gz
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fisher, Franklin M. & Shell, Karl, 1972. "The Economic Theory of Price Indices," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780122577505 edited by Shell, Karl.
    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. Redding, Stephen J. & Weinstein, David E., 2016. "A unified approach to estimating demand and welfare," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 67681, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. David M. Cutler & Mark B. McClellan & Joseph P. Newhouse & Dahlia K. Remler, 2001. "Pricing Heart Attack Treatments," NBER Chapters, in: Medical Care Output and Productivity, pages 305-362, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Banzhaf, H. Spencer, 2002. "Quality Adjustment for Spatially-Delineated Public Goods: Theory and Application to Cost-of-Living Indices in Los Angeles," RFF Working Paper Series dp-02-10-, Resources for the Future.
    4. B. Balk & H. Lorenz & J. Whalley & V. Valli & M. Kräkel, 1999. "Book reviews," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 69(1), pages 96-111, February.
    5. Trajtenberg, Manuel, 1989. "Product Innovations, Price Indices and the (Mis)Measurement of Economic Performance," Foerder Institute for Economic Research Working Papers 275471, Tel-Aviv University > Foerder Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Jacek Białek, 2011. "Remarks about the generalizations of the Fisher index," Statistics in Transition new series, Główny Urząd Statystyczny (Polska), vol. 12(1), pages 139-156, August.
    7. William A. Barnett & Milka Kirova & Meenakshi Pasupathy & Piyu Yue, 1996. "Estimating Policy-Invariant Technology and Taste Parameters in the Financial Sector, When Risk and Growth Matter," Macroeconomics 9602002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. William A. Barnett & Yi Liu & Haiyang Xu & Mark Jensen, 1996. "The CAPM Risk Adjustment Needed for Exact Aggregation over Financial Assets," Econometrics 9602003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Erwin Diewert, 2009. "The aggregation of capital over vintages in a model of embodied technical progress," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 1-19, August.
    10. Amartya K. Sen, 1997. "From Income Inequality to Economic Inequality," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(2), pages 384-401, October.
    11. Leonard I. Nakamura, 2010. "Intangible Assets And National Income Accounting," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(s1), pages 135-155, June.
    12. Kam Yu & Marc Prud'homme, 2010. "Econometric issues in hedonic price indices: the case of internet service providers," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(15), pages 1973-1994.
    13. Jack E. Triplett, 1991. "Hedonic Methods in Statistical Agency Environments: An Intellectual Biopsy," NBER Chapters, in: Fifty Years of Economic Measurement: The Jubilee of the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, pages 207-238, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Griliches, Zvi & Cockburn, Iain, 1994. "Generics and New Goods in Pharmaceutical Price Indexes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1213-1232, December.
    15. William A. Barnett & Yi Liu, 1996. "The CAPM-Extended Divisia Monetary Aggregate with Exact Tracking under Risk," Finance 9602001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Marshall Reinsdorf & Jack E. Triplett, 2009. "A Review of Reviews: Ninety Years of Professional Thinking About the Consumer Price Index," NBER Chapters, in: Price Index Concepts and Measurement, pages 17-83, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Capalbo, Susan & Denny, Michael & Hoque, Anwarul & Overton, C. Edward, 1991. "Methodologies for Comparisons of Agricultural Output, Input, and Productivity: A Review and Synthesis," Staff Reports 278532, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    18. Reis, Ricardo, 2005. "A cost-of-living dynamic price index, with an application to indexing retirement accounts," CEPR Discussion Papers 5394, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Stephen J Redding & David E Weinstein, 2020. "Measuring Aggregate Price Indices with Taste Shocks: Theory and Evidence for CES Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 135(1), pages 503-560.
    20. P. J. Lloyd, 1978. "Wage Indexation: The Treatment of Public Sector Taxes and Goods," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 54(2), pages 182-194, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fisher Ideal Index; Historical Price Indexes; Historical Quantity Indexes; Splicing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General
    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • N1 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations

    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:wpa:wuwpda:9612001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.