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Measuring consumer inflation in a digital economy

Author

Listed:
  • Marshall Reinsdorf

    (International Monetary Fund)

  • Paul Schreyer

    (OECD)

Abstract

The effect on the household consumption price index from possible sources of error in capturing digital products depends on the weight of the affected products. To calculate upper bounds for this effect, we apply weights based on the average structure of household consumption in OECD countries to a maximum plausible overstatement of price change for each affected or potentially affected product. The products account for about 35% of household expenditure in 2005, declining to 32% in 2015. The upper bound simulation effect on the growth rate of the consumption deflator is somewhat less than –0.6 percentage points in 2015 – large enough to improve the picture of GDP and productivity growth in advanced economies. However, this would not overturn the conclusion that productivity growth has slowed substantially compared over the past decades.

Suggested Citation

  • Marshall Reinsdorf & Paul Schreyer, 2019. "Measuring consumer inflation in a digital economy," OECD Statistics Working Papers 2019/01, OECD Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:oec:stdaaa:2019/01-en
    DOI: 10.1787/1d002364-en
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    Cited by:

    1. Menz, Jan-Oliver & Wieland, Elisabeth & Mehrhoff, Jens, 2022. "Estimating the impact of quality adjustment on consumer price inflation," Discussion Papers 49/2022, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    2. Boldsen Carsten, 2022. "A Comment on the Article by W. Erwin Diewert and Kevin J. Fox," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 38(1), pages 287-289, March.
    3. Anderton, Robert & Jarvis, Valerie & Labhard, Vincent & Morgan, Julian & Petroulakis, Filippos & Vivian, Lara, 2020. "Virtually everywhere? Digitalisation and the euro area and EU economies," Occasional Paper Series 244, European Central Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    cost of living index; digital replacements; digitalised economy; GDP growth; Inflation; productivity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

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