IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecm/nasm04/504.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

CPI Bias and Real Living Standards in Russia During The Transition

Author

Listed:
  • John Gibson
  • Steven Stillman

Abstract

The economies of the former Soviet Bloc experienced large declines in output during the decade of transition which began with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Yet there are many reasons to believe that measured output and official deflators provide a poor proxy for the change in real living standards in transition economies. This paper uses the Engel curve methodology recently developed by Hamilton (2001) and Costa (2001) to examine changes in real living standards in Russia during the transition period and to provide an estimate of how much the official Russian CPI has overstated consumer inflation. We also examine changes in consumer durables, home production, and subjective well-being to further evaluate changes in living standards. Our findings indicate that CPI bias has caused a substantial understatement of the growth performance of the Russian economy during the transition. Even just allowing household final consumption to be deflated with bias, we find that the level of real per capita GDP in 2001 may be understated by up to thirty percent compared with using a bias-corrected deflator. Our analysis of consumer durables, home production, and subjective well-being supports the conclusion that the decline in living standards has been substantially less than what is inferred by looking at official statistics on real output.

Suggested Citation

  • John Gibson & Steven Stillman, 2004. "CPI Bias and Real Living Standards in Russia During The Transition," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 504, Econometric Society.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecm:nasm04:504
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Bank, 2002. "Transition, The First Ten Years : Analysis and Lessons for Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 14042.
    2. Brada, Josef C. & King, Arthur E. & Kutan, Ali M., 2000. "Inflation bias and productivity shocks in transition economies: The case of the Czech Republic," ZEI Working Papers B 02-2000, University of Bonn, ZEI - Center for European Integration Studies.
    3. Simon Johnson & Daniel Kaufman & Andrei Shleifer, 1997. "The Unofficial Economy in Transition," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(2), pages 159-240.
    4. Falcetti, Elisabetta & Raiser, Martin & Sanfey, Peter, 2002. "Defying the Odds: Initial Conditions, Reforms, and Growth in the First Decade of Transition," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 229-250, June.
    5. Kolodko, Grzegorz W., 2000. "From Shock to Therapy: The Political Economy of Postsocialist Transformation," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198297437.
    6. Duncan Thomas & Elizabeth Frankenberg & James P. Smith, 2001. "Lost but Not Forgotten: Attrition and Follow-up in the Indonesia Family Life Survey," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 36(3), pages 556-592.
    7. Seale, James L., Jr. & Regmi, Anita & Bernstein, Jason, 2003. "International Evidence On Food Consumption Patterns," Technical Bulletins 33580, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    8. Timothy K.M. Beatty & Erling Røed Larsen, 2005. "Using Engel curves to estimate bias in the Canadian CPI as a cost of living index," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(2), pages 482-499, May.
    9. World Bank, 2005. "Russia : Reducing Poverty through Growth and Social Policy Reform," World Bank Publications - Reports 8523, The World Bank Group.
    10. Angus Deaton & Christina Paxson, 1998. "Economies of Scale, Household Size, and the Demand for Food," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 897-930, October.
    11. Seabright,Paul (ed.), 2000. "The Vanishing Rouble," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521790376, September.
    12. repec:zbw:bofitp:2006_009 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Paul R. Gregory & Valery Lazarev, 2004. "Structural Change in Russian Transition," Working Papers 896, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    14. Jan Hanousek & Randall K. Filer, 2000. "Output Changes and Inflationary Bias in Transition," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp167, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    15. Konstantin Gluschenko, 2003. "Market integration in Russia during the transformation years," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 11(3), pages 411-434, September.
    16. Dora L. Costa, 2001. "Estimating Real Income in the United States from 1888 to 1994: Correcting CPI Bias Using Engel Curves," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(6), pages 1288-1310, December.
    17. International Monetary Fund, 2003. "Russian Federation: Statistical Appendix," IMF Staff Country Reports 2003/145, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Jerry Hausman, 2003. "Sources of Bias and Solutions to Bias in the Consumer Price Index," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 23-44, Winter.
    19. David J. McKenzie, 2006. "The Consumer Response to the Mexican Peso Crisis," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55, pages 139-172.
    20. Seale, James L., Jr. & Regmi, Anita & Bernstein, Jason, 2003. "International Evidence On Food Consumption Patterns," Technical Bulletins 33580, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    21. Andrei Shleifer & Daniel Treisman, 2005. "A Normal Country: Russia After Communism," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 151-174, Winter.
    22. Filer, Randall K. & Hanousek, Jan, 2002. "Survey-Based Estimates of Biases in Consumer Price Indices during Transition: Evidence from Romania," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 476-487, September.
    23. A. Еslund, 2001. "The Myth of Output Collapse After Communism," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, vol. 7.
    24. Stillman, Steven & Thomas, Duncan, 2004. "The Effect of Economic Crises on Nutritional Status: Evidence from Russia," IZA Discussion Papers 1092, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    25. Berkowitz, Daniel & DeJong, David N. & Husted, Steven, 1998. "Quantifying Price Liberalization in Russia," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 735-760, December.
    26. Seabright,Paul (ed.), 2000. "The Vanishing Rouble," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521795425, September.
    27. William D. Nordhaus, 1998. "Quality Change in Price Indexes," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 59-68, Winter.
    28. Spulber,Nicolas, 2003. "Russia's Economic Transitions," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521816991, September.
    29. McKenzie, David J, 2006. "The Consumer Response to the Mexican Peso Crisis," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(1), pages 139-172, October.
    30. Deaton, Angus S & Muellbauer, John, 1980. "An Almost Ideal Demand System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 312-326, June.
    31. Bruce W. Hamilton, 2001. "Using Engel's Law to Estimate CPI Bias," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 619-630, June.
    32. Boskin, Michael J & Jorgenson, Dale W, 1997. "Implications of Overstating Inflation for Indexing Government Programs and Understanding Economic Progress," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 89-93, May.
    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. Filho, Irineu de Carvalho & Chamon, Marcos, 2012. "The myth of post-reform income stagnation: Evidence from Brazil and Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 368-386.
    2. Ingvild Almås & Timothy K.M. Beatty & Thomas F. Crossley, 2018. "Lost in Translation: What do Engel Curves Tell us about the Cost of Living?," CESifo Working Paper Series 6886, CESifo.
    3. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson & Miao Liu, 2016. "Are Chinese Growth and Inflation Too Smooth? Evidence from Engel Curves," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 113-144, July.
    4. Chamon, Marcos & de Carvalho Filho, Irineu, 2014. "Consumption based estimates of urban Chinese growth," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 126-137.
    5. Thorsten Beck & Luc Laeven, 2006. "Institution building and growth in transition economies," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 157-186, June.
    6. Almås, Ingvild & Johnsen, Åshild Auglænd, 2012. "The cost of living in China: Implications for inequality and poverty," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 21/2012, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    7. Clements, Kenneth W. & Gao, Grace, 2015. "The Rotterdam demand model half a century on," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 91-103.
    8. Cook, Jonathan Aaron, 2013. "Does Chinese Inflation Understate Cost of Living?," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150571, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Ingvild Almas & Ashild Johnsen, 2018. "The cost of a growth miracle - reassessing price and poverty trends in China," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 239-264, October.
    10. Garry F. Barrett & Matthew Brzozowski, 2010. "Using Engel Curves to Estimate the Bias in the Australian CPI," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(272), pages 1-14, March.
    11. Andrew Dabalen & Isis Gaddis & Nga Thi Viet Nguyen, 2020. "CPI Bias and its Implications for Poverty Reduction in Africa," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 18(1), pages 13-44, March.
    12. Shiyuan Chen & Sally Wallace, 2009. "Food Consumption in Jamaica: A Household and Social Behavior," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper0901, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    13. Trevon D. Logan, 2008. "Are Engel Curve Estimates of CPI Bias Biased?," NBER Working Papers 13870, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Ingvild Almås & Anders Kjelsrud & Rohini Somanathan, 2019. "A Behavior‐Based Approach to the Estimation of Poverty in India," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(1), pages 182-224, January.
    15. Huffman, Wallace, 2004. "Marketizing U.S. Production in the Post-War Era: Implications for Estimating CPI Bias and Real Income from a Complete-Household-Demand System," Staff General Research Papers Archive 11987, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    16. Timothy K.M. Beatty & Erling Røed Larsen, 2005. "Using Engel curves to estimate bias in the Canadian CPI as a cost of living index," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(2), pages 482-499, May.
    17. Seale, James L. & Solano, Alexis A., 2012. "The changing demand for energy in rich and poor countries over 25years," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1834-1844.
    18. Libor Dusek & Lubomir Lizal (ed.), 2011. "CERGE-EI Tackles Transition," CERGE-EI Books, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague, edition 1, number b05, May.
    19. Svejnar, Jan, 2007. "China in Light of the Performance of Central and East European Economies," CEPR Discussion Papers 6320, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Andrés Langebaek & Edgar Caicedo, 2007. "Sesgo de medición del IPC: nueva evidencia para Colombia," Borradores de Economia 435, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    CPI bias; living standards; measurement error; transition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    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:ecm:nasm04:504. 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: Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/essssea.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.