Price indexes thus can give relatively accurate measures of price change only for periods close together in time.
But for journeys within a single country, train service may trump air travel on twin measures of price and convenience.
"The increase in energy prices, though having limited effect on core measures of prices to date, poses a risk of raising inflation expectations," it said.
Although core measures of prices are rising slightly faster than a year ago, continuing rapid advances in productivity have been containing costs and holding down underlying price pressures.
Professor Boskin worked in the White House throughout the Bush administration and, in the mid-1990's, headed a much-publicized Congressional commission to improve government measures of prices.
"The increase in energy prices, though having limited effect on core measures of prices to date, poses a risk of raising inflation expectations," the Federal Open Market Committee said in announcing its rate decision.
In its statement, the Fed said: "The increase in energy prices, though having limited effect on core measures of prices to date, poses a risk of raising inflation expectations".
"The utilization of the pool of available workers remains at an unusually high level, and the increase in energy prices, though having limited effect on core measures of prices to date, still harbors the possibility of raising inflation expectations," the committee said in a statement.
The empirical literature has documented that the magnitude of price dispersion varies as a function of product characteristics (price level, purchase frequency, etc).. Table 1 reports several measures of price dispersion by product categories.
We identified seven regional/international metasurveillance systems with longitudinal measures of price or purity/potency that met eligibility criteria.
