Shadowstats debunked

I've yet to find someone who has been able to reproduce the claims made by Shadow Government Statistics about the extent to which government agencies are grossly misreporting the U.S. inflation rate....

Consumer Inflation: What Do Alternate Measures Say, and Why

What to make of the different measures of inflation being faced by consumers?In Figure 1, I plot four measures: the standard CPI-U, the CPI research series, the chained CPI, and the personal...

Core inflation

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that its primary consumer price index CPI-U rose 5.6% over the last year. That's the highest inflation rate in 17 years, the newspapers all call to...

What does the GDP deflator measure?

As Menzie explained yesterday, it isn't inflation. Since there still seems to be some controversy about this issue (e.g., Rich Karlgaard, Instapundit, and Reuters), let me take a stab at it as...

The work lunch and inflation

The state of the economy is affecting the work lunch. More people are brown-bagging it these days. Sure, bringing your own food has always been more economic and often healthier, but if you’re...