Price and Index Number Research Home Page

The Division was created in 1963 in response to the Stigler Commission Report on Federal price statistics. It has had a long and successful history, both in providing economic consulting services to the Bureau and in serving as a source of, and conduit for, new ideas in the economics profession. The Division staff works on long term research, much of it towards resolving of price index measurement problems, using a wide range of methods from microeconomic and macroeconomic theory, consumer economics, industrial organization, econometrics, and statistics. The Division also provides consulting services to the production offices within the Office of Prices and Living Conditions: Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE); Consumer Price Index (CPI); Producer Price Index (PPI); Import/Export Price Indexes (MXP).

DPINR Research Products:

1. Research New Tenant Rent Index
2. Distribution of Personal Consumption Expenditures
3. Research Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) Thresholds
4. Research Disease-Based Price Indexes (R-DBPI)

Current research includes:

Consumption poverty

• Title of Presentation: "Consumption Measurement from a Micro Perspective: A View from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics"

  Author(s): Thesia I. Garner, Brett Matsumoto, and Jake Schild

  Venue: Luxembourg Consumption Study Workshop, 1/14/2026.

  Notice: The conference presentation is available on the LCS website.

• Title of Working Paper: "Building a Comparable Measure of Consumption: Concepts and Measurement Challenges Faced by Emerging and Advanced Economies"

  Author(s): Thesia I. Garner, Peter F. Lanjouw, Brett Matsumoto, Gintare Mazeikaite, Teresa Munzi, Jörg Neugschwender, Heba Omar, and Jake Schild

  Abstract: This paper aims to take stock of the different conceptual elements of consumption as defined and applied in emerging and advanced countries, and data collection efforts based on household surveys. This work diverges from the Eurostat-OECD EG and other country-specific analyses that focus on consumption from a national accounts’ perspective (OECD 2024; Zwijnenburg et al. 2021). In doing so, we contribute to the discussion of how to guide statistical authorities in building a consumption-based economic well-being measure at the household level. The purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) to further clarify the conceptual framework for defining a comparable consumption-based well-being concept; and (2) to provide an empirical, descriptive, distributional analysis by consumption components and demographic groups across low, middle and high-income countries. This comparative work is based on nine country case studies: Mali, Laos, Palestine, Peru, Georgia, Italy, France, the United Kingdom (U.K.), and the United States (U.S.). We first provide an update of Mancini and Vecchi (2023) concerning the aggregation plan and variable detail in a potential Luxembourg Consumption Study database and provide comparisons to the OECD ICW framework (2013) and COICOPs 2018 definitions of consumption components. The empirical section first presents the core differences in the analyzed surveys and then provides a distributional analysis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first analysis of consumption patterns across low, middle and high-income countries as a set. We conclude that there are challenges concerning what to include or exclude in consumption, for example, with regard to what to consider as durables, shelter maintenance and repairs, and accounting for insurance. In addition, we discuss the major considerations as to whether health and education expenditures should be part of an economic well-being measure. We also find that data for own-produced goods for consumption are often collected for emerging economies, but they are systematically missing in expenditure surveys conducted by high-income countries. The importance of equivalence scales is discussed with reference to major differences in consumption inequality across countries. Finally, the decomposition of the Gini coefficient highlights how the structure of consumption and its impact on inequality shifts with economic development, with basic needs driving inequality in poorer countries and more diverse consumption patterns driving it in wealthier nations.

  Notice: The full working paper is available on the LIS website.

• Title of Presentation: "An Analysis of Poverty Through a Consumption Lens: Research from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics"

  Author(s): Thesia I. Garner, Brett Matsumoto, and Jake SchildVenue: Society for Economic Measurement Annual Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, 8/1-3/2024.

  Abstract: In this study we conduct an in-depth analysis of consumption poverty with comparison to pre-tax income poverty. Both relative and absolute poverty are considered. We produce poverty statistics by demographic groups and examine how poverty has changed from 2019 to 2022, a period prior to the COVID pandemic, during the pandemic, and after. This builds on the work over the past couple of years by researchers at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics who have been involved in the development a series of consumption measures. The primary data set for these measures is the Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE). An article in the April issue of the Monthly Labor Review describes the development of the measure; simple poverty and inequality statistics for 2019-2021 are included as examples of how the measure could be used.

  Notice: The conference presentation is available on the SEM website

Sticky Continuing Tenant Rents

• Title of presentation: "Sticky Continuing Tenant Rents"

  Author(s): Joshua Gallin, Lara Loewenstein, Hugh Montag, and Randal Verbrugge

  Venue: Society for Economic Measurement Annual Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, 8/1-3/2024.

  Abstract: While much attention has been focused on new tenant rents, continuing tenant rents are more important for the dynamics of CPI shelter indexes. Besides their well-known stickiness, little else is known about these rents. This is the first study to use US CPI rent microdata, over 1999-2024, to do a deep-dive analysis of continuing tenant rents. Over this period, despite technological advances available to unsophisticated landlords, continuing tenant rents remained very sticky, with little cyclical variation even during the Financial Collapse or the pandemic; and declining mobility has made continuing tenant rents even more important drivers of the CPI since 2010. Unsurprisingly, the aggregate rent hazard function is downward-sloping. Unit-level rent gaps—that is, the difference between the unit's actual rent and its hypothetical new-tenant rent—grow over a tenancy, indicating length-of-residence discounts rather than sit discounts. Despite this, rent gaps are the most important driver of continuing tenant rent changes; other drivers of rents mainly influence new tenant rents.

  Notice: The conference presentation is available on the SEM website.

• Title of presentation: "Sticky Continuing Tenant Rents"

  Author(s): Joshua Gallin, Lara Loewenstein, Hugh Montag, and Randal Verbrugge

  Venue: 18th North American Meeting of the Urban Economics Association, Washington, D.C., 9/20-9/21/2024.

  Abstract: Declining mobility means that continuing-tenant rents are increasingly important for CPI shelter inflation. However, relatively little is known about them. Using the microdata that underlies CPI shelter, we document facts about continuing-tenant rents. They are sticky, with little cyclical variation in stickiness. Unit-level rent gaps---that is, the log difference between the unit's actual rent and its hypothetical new-tenant rent---grow over a tenancy. Higher new-tenant rents (and rent gaps) are correlated with the frequency and size of continuing-tenant rent changes and the probability of a tenant moving out.  The current aggregate rent gap is in the 2.5 to 5 percent range.

  Notice: The conference paper associated with this presentation can be found here.

Productivity dispersion and structural change in retail trade

• Title of presentation: "Productivity Dispersion and Structural Change in Retail Trade"

  Author(s): Dominic Smith, G. Jacob Blackwood, Michael D. Giandrea, Cheryl Grim, Jay Stewart, and Zoltan Wolf

  Venue: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, 11/15/2024.

  Abstract: The retail sector has changed from a sector full of small firms to one dominated by large, national firms. We study how this transformation has impacted productivity levels, growth, and dispersion between 1987 and 2017. We describe this transformation using three overlapping phases: expansion (1980s and 1990s), consolidation (2000s), and stagnation (2010s). We document five findings that help us understand these phases. First, productivity growth was high during the consolidation phase but has fallen more recently. Second, entering establishments drove productivity growth during the expansion phase, but continuing establishments have increased in importance more recently. Third, national chains have more productive establishments than single-unit firms on average, but some single-unit establishments are highly productive. Fourth, productivity dispersion is significant and increasing over time. Finally, more productive firms pay higher wages and grow more quickly. Together, these results suggest that the increasing importance of large national retail firms has been an important driver of productivity and wage growth in the retail sector.

  Notice: The working paper associated with this presentation can be found here.

Last Modified Date: March 11, 2026