How Much Do Official Price Indexes Tell Us about Inflation?

This paper examines the associations between online price indexes and official statistics. First, we generate online CPI component sub-indexes, which are later aggregated to an Online Price CPI. This approach is applied to our unique dataset which contains about 3 million observations of online retail prices for consumer goods in Ukraine’s five largest cities. The data span over the period 2016m1 – 2017m12 and cover about 46% of Ukraine’s Consumer Price Inflation basket. We find that online inflation is generally consistent with official estimates, but the matching capability varies across sub-indexes. Although the differences can partially be explained by poor dataset coverage, we find that online prices may indeed represent new information that is not captured by official statistics.

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Online and official price indexes: Measuring Argentina's inflation

Journal of Monetary Economics ◽

10.1016/j.jmoneco.2012.10.002 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 60 (2) ◽

pp. 152-165 ◽

Cited By ~ 63

Author(s):

Alberto Cavallo

Keyword(s):

Official Price ◽

Price Indexes

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The Shifting Legitimacies of Price Measurements: Official Statistics and the Quantification of Pwofitasyon in the 2009 Social Struggle in Guadeloupe

10.1007/978-3-030-78201-6_11 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 337-377

Author(s):

Boris Samuel

Keyword(s):

Balance Of Power ◽

Measurement Methods ◽

Cost Of Living ◽

Official Statistics ◽

Official Price ◽

Political Criticism ◽

Social Struggle ◽

Price Indexes ◽

Price Measurement

AbstractIn 2009, Guadeloupe experienced a historic 44 day-long strike against the high cost of living. The union-led collective (LKP) leading the strike used calculations and figures as a weapon to prove that players holding dominant market positions captured undue profits (“pwofitasyon”). Also, official price indexes were subjected to radical political criticism by the LKP actors. Yet, by using averages, these calculations could not account for the existence of individual abusive prices. The “statactivistic” momentum resulted in a shift of the legitimate price measurement methods. Calculation was, however, also the collective’s Achilles heel. LKP members’ use of numbers established only a temporary favourable balance of power in the negotiations. It was not enough for them to compete with the state’s calculative skills on an equal basis.

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