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Title: Downward Bias in the Most Important CPI Component: The Case of Rental Shelter, 1914-2003

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2003

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Abstract: This paper develops new price indexes from a variety of sources to assess the hypothesis that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for rental shelter housing has been biased downward for its entire history since 1914. Rental shelter housing is the most important single category of the CPI, especially for those years when rent data have been used to impute price changes for owner-occupied housing. If valid, the implications of the hypothesis of downward bias would carry over to the deflator for personal consumption expenditures (PCE) and, in the opposite direction, to historical measures of real PCE and real gross domestic product (GDP).

Url: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c0877

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Authors: Gordon, Robert, J; vanGoethem, Todd

Conference Name: Conference on Research in Income and Wealth

Publisher Location: Bethesda, MD

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other

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