A Bureau of Labor Statistics perspective on bias in the consumer price index (panel discussion)

Consumer price indexes ; Prices

New Evidence on Outlet Substitution Effects in Consumer Price Index Data

In this paper we provide new and detailed evidence on the impact on the U.S. CPI of the appearance and growth of new types of product outlets. Using actual CPI microdata for 2002-2007, we find that the changing mix of outlets had a statistically significantly negative impact on average prices in most of the 14 item food categories we study. In contrast to previous studies of this issue, our approach allows us to examine the effects of changes in outlet mix both across outlet types (such as among large groceries, discount department stores, and warehouse club stores) and within those outlet categories. We also adjust for numerous differences in item characteristics such as brand name, organic certification, and, importantly, package size. In our sample we find that the upward impact on price from increased item quality has offset most of the downward impact of lower-priced outlets. We also provide evidence showing that a simulated “matched-model” approach similar to that used in the CPI yields indexes that differ to a surprising extent from our baseline hedonic indexes, which also hold outlet and item mix constant.Outlet Bias, Consumer Price Index

Reconsideration of Weighting and Updating Procedures in the US CPI

Production capital and technology (i.e., total factor productivity) in U.S. manufacturing are fundamental for understanding output and productivity growth of the U.S. economy but are unobserved at this level of aggregation and must be estimated before being used in empirical analysis. Previously, we developed a method for estimating production capital and technology based on an estimated dynamic structural economic model and applied the method using annual SIC data for 1947-1997 to estimate production capital and technology in U.S. total manufacturing. In this paper, we update this work by reestimating the model and production capital and technology using annual SIC data for 1949-2001 and partly overlapping NAICS data for 1987-2005.Aggregation, Consumer Price Index, CPI, Index Number

The Balmer spectrum of rational equivariant cohomoloy theories

The category of rational G-equivariant cohomology theories for a compact Lie group G is the homotopy category of rational G-spectra and therefore tensor-triangulated. We show that its Balmer spectrum is the set of conjugacy classes of closed subgroups of G, with the topology corresponding to the topological poset of [7]. This is used to classify the collections of subgroups arising as the geometric isotropy of finite G-spectra. The ingredients for this classification are (i) the algebraic model of free spectra of the author and B. Shipley [14], (ii) the Localization Theorem of Borel–Hsiang–Quillen [21] and (iii) tom Dieck's calculation of the rational Burnside ring [4]

An algebraic model for rational torus-equivariant spectra

We provide a universal de Rham model for rational G ‐equivariant cohomology theories for an arbitrary torus G . More precisely, we show that the representing category, of rational G ‐spectra, is Quillen equivalent to the explicit small and calculable algebraic model d A ( G ) of differential graded objects in the category A ( G ) introduced in [Greenlees, J. Pure Appl. Algebra 212 (2008) 72–98]

Massey products in the homology of the loopspace of a pp-completed classifying space : finite groups with cyclic Sylow pp-subgroups

Funding Information: The authors are grateful to EPSRC: the second author is supported by EP/P031080/1, which also enabled the first author to visit Warwick. The authors would also like to thank the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, for providing an opportunity to work on this project during the simultaneous programmes ‘-theory, algebraic cycles and motivic homotopy theory’ and ‘Groups, representations and applications: new perspectives’ (one author was supported by each programme). Open access via CUP agreementPeer reviewedPublisher PD

The local cohomology spectral sequence for topological modular forms

We discuss proofs of local cohomology theorems for topological modular forms, based on Mahowald-Rezk duality and on Gorenstein duality, and then make the associated local cohomology spectral sequences explicit, including their differential patterns and hidden extensions

Fixed point adjunctions for module spectra

We consider the Quillen adjunction between fixed points and inflation in the context of equivariant module spectra over equivariant ring spectra, and give numerous examples including some based on geometric fixed points and some on the Eilenberg-Moore spectral sequence. These results were originally presented as part of our equivalence between rational torus-equivariant spectra and an algebraic model in arXiv:1101.2511. However, the present results apply in many other interesting cases explored here, which are not rational and where the ambient group is not a torus. The material in arXiv:1101.2511v3 will be revised to refer to this paper