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Abstract:
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The growth of E-commerce, has brought with it a number of issues for the computation of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index (CPI). Most significantly, identifying the specific outlet from which price data collectors can collect prices necessary to measure the monthly price change has become more difficult as e-commerce service portals have expanded. These portals, such as Travelocity and Expedia, serve as one stop shops for the purchase of hotel rooms, automobile rentals and airline fares. However, selecting a particular expenditure (e.g., Hilton, Days Inn, or Motel 6 in Peoria) for repeated pricing is more difficult because of a lack of knowledge of the probability of its purchase by the CPI population. This paper describes the cognitive research and the changes proposed for the BLS Point of Purchase survey to address this growing phenomenon.
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