<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>National statistical offices have faced unprecedented circumstances in the modern history of economic measurement. There were dramatically changing consumer expenditure patterns due to pandemic conditions, with lockdowns and fear of infection making many goods and services unavailable. We examine the implications of changing relative expenditures for the construction of Consumer Price Indexes, with special reference to the treatment of prices for unavailable products. We conclude that for many purposes, it would be useful for statistical agencies to establish a continuous consumer expenditure survey. We also examine various other practical pandemic induced CPI measurement problems.</p>
</abstract>

National statistical offices have faced unprecedented circumstances in the modern history of economic measurement. There were dramatically changing consumer expenditure patterns due to pandemic conditions, with lockdowns and fear of infection making many goods and services unavailable. We examine the implications of changing relative expenditures for the construction of Consumer Price Indexes, with special reference to the treatment of prices for unavailable products. We conclude that for many purposes, it would be useful for statistical agencies to establish a continuous consumer expenditure survey. We also examine various other practical pandemic induced CPI measurement problems.

Measuring Inflation under Pandemic Conditions

Journal of Official Statistics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Measuring Inflation under Pandemic Conditions"}

National statistical offices have faced unprecedented circumstances in the modern history of economic measurement. There were dramatically changing consumer...

Measuring Inflation under Pandemic Conditions

Published Online: Mar 29, 2022

Page range: 255 - 285

Received: Jul 01, 2020

Accepted: Nov 01, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jos-2022-0012

Keywords
Consumer price index, disappearing products, COVID-19

© 2022 W. Erwin Diewert et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Measuring Inflation under Pandemic Conditions

Published Online: Mar 29, 2022

Page range: 255 - 285

Received: Jul 01, 2020

Accepted: Nov 01, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jos-2022-0012

KeywordsConsumer price index, disappearing products, COVID-19

© 2022 W. Erwin Diewert et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Consumer price index, disappearing products, COVID-19