This textbook integrates mathematical index theory and its application in official price statistics. It tries to bridge theory and practice, due to the apparent divergence between mathematicians with ever more sophisticated and complex models and practitioners with problems that are more and more difficult to understand without broad knowledge and some experience. The text offers an introduction into axiomatic, microeconomic and stochastic reasoning as regards index numbers, with moderately difficult mathematics. It also summarizes many ongoing discussions concerning methodological merits and demerits of specific indices, such as consumer price-, producer price-, unit value- and chain indices, in official price statistics. The book is comprehensive and presents a readable overview of a great number of topics in modern price index theory and their application in inflation measurement, deflation of aggregates in National Accounts, sampling and quality adjustment in price collection and other important though controversial issues.

The consumer price index (CPI) measures the rate at which prices of consumer goods and services change over time. It is used as a key indicator of economic performance, as well as in the setting of monetary and socio-economic policy such as indexation of wages and social security benefits, purchasing power parities and inflation measures. This manual contains methodological guidelines for statistical offices and other agencies responsible for constructing and calculating CPIs, and also examines underlying economic and statistical concepts involved. Topics covered include: expenditure weights, sampling, price collection, quality adjustment, sampling, price indices calculations, errors and bias, organisation and management, dissemination, index number theory, durables and user costs.

A joint production by six international organizations, this manual explores the conceptual and theoretical issues that national statistical offices should consider in the daily compilation of export and import price indices. Intended for use by both ...

Index theory studies the solutions to differential equations on geometric spaces, their relation to the underlying geometry and topology, and applications to physics. If the space of solutions is infinite dimensional, it becomes necessary to generalise the classical Fredholm index using tools from the K-theory of operator algebras. This leads to higher index theory, a rapidly developing subject with connections to noncommutative geometry, large-scale geometry, manifold topology and geometry, and operator algebras. Aimed at geometers, topologists and operator algebraists, this book takes a friendly and concrete approach to this exciting theory, focusing on the main conjectures in the area and their applications outside of it. A well-balanced combination of detailed introductory material (with exercises), cutting-edge developments and references to the wider literature make this a valuable guide to this active area for graduate students and experts alike.

The Economic Theory of Price Indices: Two Essays on the Effects of Taste, Quality, and Technological Change is concerned with the effects of consumer taste, product quality, and technological change on price indices. Special attention is paid on technological change in the simple two-sector production model of Rybczynski and Uzawa. The effects of the general case of changing factor supplies and factor-augmenting change on the real national output deflator are also examined. Comprised of two essays, this book begins with an analysis of the pure theory of the true cost-of-living index, which may be considered as an idealization of indices like the consumer price index and others of that type. The essay explores how the true cost-of-living index is affected by changes in consumer taste, quality changes in purchased goods, and the introduction of new goods into the market place. The second essay deals with the pure theory of the national output deflator and provides a foundation for the measurement of real national output (or product). It shows that the usual inequalities relating Paasche and Laspeyres to the true index are reversed (from what they are in cost-of-living theory) for the case of production. It also assesses the implications of changing production possibilities caused by technological change or a change in factor supplies. This monograph will be a useful resource for mathematicians, economists, and others interested in economic theory and mathematical economics.

Describes, explains, and explores the Index Theorem of Atiyah and Singer, one of the truly great accomplishments of twentieth-century mathematics whose influence continues to grow, fifty years after its discovery. David Bleecker and Bernhelm Boo�-Bavnbek give two proofs of the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem in impressive detail: one based on K-theory and the other on the heat kernel approach.

Industrial Price, Quantity, and Productivity Indices: The Micro-Economic Theory and an Application gives a comprehensive account of the micro-economic foundations of industrial price, quantity, and productivity indices. The various results available from the literature have been brought together into a consistent framework, based upon modern duality theory. This integration also made it possible to generalize several of these results. Thus, this book will be an important resource for theoretically as well as empirically-oriented researchers who seek to analyse economic problems with the help of index numbers. Although this book's emphasis is on micro-economic theory, it is also intended as a practical guide. A full chapter is therefore devoted to an empirical application. Three different approaches are pursued: a straightforward empirical approach, a non-parametric estimation approach, and a parametric estimation approach. As well as illustrating some of the more important concepts explored in this book, and showing to what extent different computational approaches lead to different outcomes for the same measures, this chapter also makes a powerful case for the use of enterprise micro-data in economic research.

Every time you buy a can of tuna or a new television, its bar code is scanned to record its price and other information. These "scanner data" offer a number of attractive features for economists and statisticians, because they are collected continuously, are available quickly, and record prices for all items sold, not just a statistical sample. But scanner data also present a number of difficulties for current statistical systems. Scanner Data and Price Indexes assesses both the promise and the challenges of using scanner data to produce economic statistics. Three papers present the results of work in progress at statistical agencies in the U.S., United Kingdom, and Canada, including a project at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to investigate the feasibility of incorporating scanner data into the monthly Consumer Price Index. Other papers demonstrate the enormous potential of using scanner data to test economic theories and estimate the parameters of economic models, and provide solutions for some of the problems that arise when using scanner data, such as dealing with missing data.

Book Description The present book is a statistical course for undergraduate students in all fields of social and economic sciences. The book presents a manual on the course "General Theory of Statistics", including a series of not quite traditional topics. First of all, it concerns the mathematical bases of statistics and use of computer technologies in statistical probing. Thematic choice of the chapters and sections of the book is caused not only by interests and tastes of the authors, but also by modern tendencies in applied statistics and orientation of the given work. The book is based on a course of lectures given by the first author for undergraduates in social and economic sciences along with three books published in Russian and English in Estonia, Lithuania and Byelorussia. This book has been written for a large enough audience of teachers, researchers, statisticians, students, collegians and users of statistics in behavioral and social sciences. Above all, the book is directed to a wide circle of the readers studying statistical disciplines in high schools and colleges; however, it can be useful also to persons independently studying statistics. Author Biography (Aladjev V.Z.) Professor Aladjev V.Z. was born on June 14, 1942 in the town Grodno (Byelorussia). Now, he is the First vice-president of the International Academy of Noosphere and the president of Tallinn Research Group, whose scientific results have received international recognition, first, in the field of mathematical theory of Cellular Automata (CA). He is member of a series of Russian and International Academies. Aladjev V. Z. is the author of more than 330 scientific publications, including 63 books, published in many countries. He participates as a member of the organizing committee and/or a guest lecturer in many international scientific forums in mathematics and cybernetics. Author Biography (Haritonov V.N.) Dr. Haritonov V.N. was born on August 2, 1946 in the town Nizhni Novgorod (Russia). On successful graduation from Tallinn Technical University, he has acquired a profession of economics. Since 1972, Haritonov V.N. has the respectable positions in the Estonian banking system. Now, he is the Chairman of the Board of Tallinn Business Bank. Most considerable methodological projects and practical results of Haritonov V.N. are related to economic sciences, and, above all, to banking field, including automation of banking system, banking statistics, etc. Along with a series of publications, Haritonov V.N. has participated in many scientific and applied forums on banking economics.