In an earlier paper (Yehezkael 1991), computational tests and a computer simulation were used to quantitatively assess inaccuracies of several price index formulae. In this paper the analytic approach for assessing these inaccuracies is developed and is found to be in good agreement with the estimates obtained computationally in our earlier paper. The treatment presented here is more general th...

BACKGROUND Policymakers and researchers frequently compare the prices of medicines between countries. Such comparisons often serve as barometers of how pricing and reimbursement policies are performing. The aim of this study was to examine methodological challenges to comparing generic drug prices. METHODS We calculated all commonly used price indices based on 2013 IMS Health data on sales of...

In this paper, we study the role of price correction in estimating the impact of price subsidies and anti-poverty cash transfer schemes on poverty in Tunisia. Three types of price corrections are considered: (a) no corrections; (b) living standards deflated by spatial Laspeyres price indices; (c) living standards deflated by true price indices that are estimated from a quadratic almost ideal de...

We study the dispersion of absolute price levels for US cities since 1918. By absolute price levels, we mean price indices that measure the cost of a given consumption basket at each point in time. We find strong evidence that city price levels converge over time and that the dispersion of price levels is lower for US cities than between OECD countries. We argue that price level convergence for...

We study a class of symmetric, quasi-homothetic preferences that result in demands logarithmic in own prices when these have a negligible impact on aggregate price indices (as in monopolistic competition models). Thus marginal revenues are computationally friendly, and decreasing whenever demands are elastic. Preferences can be represented either by an additive negative exponential direct utili...

This paper discusses the construction of an ecosystem services index (ESI) and the respective roles of ecology and economics in that effort. It extends the concept of an ESI, analogous to Gross Domestic Product, to other analogous indices, including an ecosystem price or value index, and a net ESI that accounts for interactions between ecosystem stocks and service flows. A central aim of this p...

This paper investigates whether using natural logarithms (logs) of price indices for forecasting inflation rates is preferable to employing the original series. Univariate forecasts for annual inflation rates for a number of European countries and the USA based on monthly seasonal consumer price indices are considered. Stochastic seasonality and deterministic seasonality models are used. In man...