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Other Inflation Posts
I wanted to make the direct subscribers to this blog aware of a couple of posts I have put up on another site.
In exchange for content exclusivity, this other site is actually paying for page views. This is an interesting model, although very unlikely to be very lucrative. To try it out, I’ve posted a couple of items there. While I can’t make them available here, I don’t want subscribers to miss other related content.
These two articles are “under the hood” about CPI and how various subcomponents are evolving:
Under the Hood of the CPI: Where Inflation Is and Isn’t
Under the Hood of the CPI: Transportation Inflation
Please let me know what you think!
Categories: Causes of Inflation
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Reading the comments sections of some of your articles, something struck me about the quality adjustment facet of the BLS CPI numbers. I usually hear the Austrians kick CPI because of the hamburger/steak adjustment, but it occurred to me that if their focus is on human action, wouldn’t it be in their interest to accept this model and try to figure out how these adjustments occur and what adjustments are occurring and tie it into some sort of model or at least critique the BLS adjustments based on their validity?
I can see that they want an index based on the same products over time, but listening to some of their people I hear a lot of their arguments against models that feature these homogeneous, monolithic consumers that buy the same thing today, tomorrow, next month, 10 years from now…regardless of other economic factors, it strike me as odd that they seem to apply such assumptions to an inflation index. I would think that they would want a “SUPER-CPI” that took quality adjustments in account in the shortest amount of time as possible.
Hi Bob – Yes, I think that’s a great point. I understand they don’t like what the BLS does – although they don’t really understand it, mostly – but they never propose a reasonable alternative. I think their REAL objection is that they think the government is screwing around with the numbers and hiding it with math. 🙂
Thanks again.