IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ukb/journl/y2018i243p21-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Drives the Difference between Online and Official Price Indexes?

Author

Listed:
  • Oleksandr Faryna

    (National Bank of Ukraine, National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”)

  • Oleksandr Talavera

    (Swansea University, UK)

  • Tetiana Yukhymenko

    (National Bank of Ukraine)

Abstract

This paper examines the associations between online price indexes and official statistics. First, we generate online CPI component sub-indexes, which are later aggregated to an Online Price CPI. This approach is applied to our unique dataset which contains about 3 million observations of online retail prices for consumer goods in Ukraine’s five largest cities. The data span over the period 2016m1 – 2017m12 and cover about 46% of Ukraine’s Consumer Price Inflation basket. We find that online inflation is generally consistent with official estimates, but the matching capability varies across sub-indexes. Although the differences can partially be explained by poor dataset coverage, we find that online prices may indeed represent new information that is not captured by official statistics.

Suggested Citation

  • Oleksandr Faryna & Oleksandr Talavera & Tetiana Yukhymenko, 2018. "What Drives the Difference between Online and Official Price Indexes?," Visnyk of the National Bank of Ukraine, National Bank of Ukraine, issue 243, pages 21-32.
    • Handle: RePEc:ukb:journl:y:2018:i:243:p:21-32
    DOI: 10.26531/vnbu2018.243.021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journal.bank.gov.ua/en/article/2018/243/02
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.26531/vnbu2018.243.021?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cavallo, Alberto, 2013. "Online and official price indexes: Measuring Argentina's inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 152-165.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pierdzioch, Christian & Rülke, Jan-Christoph & Stadtmann, Georg, 2015. "Central banks’ inflation forecasts under asymmetric loss: Evidence from four Latin-American countries," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 66-70.
    2. Touzani, Samir & Van Buskirk, Robert, 2016. "Estimating sales and sales market share from sales rank data for consumer appliances," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 451(C), pages 266-276.
    3. Drenik, Andrés & Perez, Diego J., 2020. "Price setting under uncertainty about inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 23-38.
    4. Campos, Luciano & Casas, Agustín, 2021. "Rara Avis: Latin American populism in the 21st century," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    5. Cavallo, Alberto & Kryvtsov, Oleksiy, 2023. "What can stockouts tell us about inflation? Evidence from online micro data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    6. Hanjo Odendaal & Monique Reid & Johann F. Kirsten, 2020. "Media‐Based Sentiment Indices as an Alternative Measure of Consumer Confidence," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 88(4), pages 409-434, December.
    7. Nora Lustig & Valentina Martinez Pabon & Guido Neidhöfer & Mariano Tommasi, 2020. "Short and Long-Run Distributional Impacts of COVID-19 in Latin America," Working Papers 2013, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    8. Rahel Braun & Sarah M. Lein, 2021. "Sources of Bias in Inflation Rates and Implications for Inflation Dynamics," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(6), pages 1553-1572, September.
    9. Fernando Álvarez & Pablo Andrés Neumeyer, 2020. "The Passthrough of Large-cost Shocks in an Inflationary Economy," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Gonzalo Castex & Jordi Galí & Diego Saravia (ed.),Changing Inflation Dynamics,Evolving Monetary Policy, edition 1, volume 27, chapter 2, pages 007-048, Central Bank of Chile.
    10. Drechsel, Thomas & Tenreyro, Silvana, 2018. "Commodity booms and busts in emerging economies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 200-218.
    11. Francis Rathinam & Sayak Khatua & Zeba Siddiqui & Manya Malik & Pallavi Duggal & Samantha Watson & Xavier Vollenweider, 2021. "Using big data for evaluating development outcomes: A systematic map," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(3), September.
    12. G. Emmanuel Guindon & Guillermo R. Paraje & Ricardo Chávez, 2018. "Prices, Inflation, And Smoking Onset: The Case Of Argentina," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 424-445, January.
    13. Mercadier, Augusto C. & Brenner, Federica S., 2020. "Tariff (un)sustainability in contexts of price (in)stability: The case of the Buenos Aires water and sanitation concession," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    14. Alan Heston, 2017. "Flaw of One Price; The International Comparison Program in Historical Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 7-21, March.
    15. Fernandez Sierra, Manuel & Messina, Julián, 2017. "Skill Premium, Labor Supply and Changes in the Structure of Wages in Latin America," IZA Discussion Papers 10718, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    16. Nora Lustig & Valentina Martinez Pabon & Federico Sanz & Stephen D. Younger, 2021. "The Impact of COVID-19 and Expanded Social Assistance on Inequality and Poverty in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 92, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    17. Philip ME Garboden, 2019. "Sources and Types of Big Data for Macroeconomic Forecasting," Working Papers 2019-3, University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, University of Hawaii at Manoa.
    18. W. Erwin Diewert & Kevin J. Fox, 2020. "Measuring Real Consumption and CPI Bias under Lockdown Conditions," NBER Working Papers 27144, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Fernández, Manuel & Messina, Julián, 2018. "Skill premium, labor supply, and changes in the structure of wages in Latin America," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 555-573.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Online prices; web scraping; consumer price index; micro prices; big data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C55 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Large Data Sets: Modeling and Analysis
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ukb:journl:y:2018:i:243:p:21-32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Research Unit (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nbugvua.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.