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 Disease-Based Price Indexes (R-DBPI)
2. Research Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) Thresholds
3. Research New Tenant Rent Index

Current research includes:

• Consumption poverty

  • 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 Schild

    Venue: 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.

• Developing methods to quality adjust medical prices
• Evaluating the use of medical claims data as an alternative source of medical prices
• Evaluating the measurement of health insurance prices
• Redesigning indexes to utilize newly available corporate transaction data aggregators (e.g., JD Power Vehicles Data)
• Development of automatizing data collection methods for price index programs
• Developing quality adjustment methods with machine learning algorithms
• Measuring the impact of formula assumptions for the CPI
• Evaluating models of nonhomothetic demand underlying heterogeneous exact price index formulas
• Developing new methods for computing a cost-of-living index
• Developing housing price indexes accounting for neighborhood quality
• Analyzing pricing zones and spatial price discrimination
• Evaluating methods to incorporate surplus gains from variety into price index formulas
• Evaluating methods of estimating the elasticity of demand between goods
• Evaluating methods of measuring the consumer benefit of new goods
• Constructing an improved historical CPI
• Accounting for in-kind benefits in expenditure-based poverty thresholds
• Developing method for distributing total factor productivity among production factors
• Investigating estimation problems that can be solved using estimated multivariate time-series models

Last Modified Date: November 25, 2024