Copyright
The Boskin Commission's report is the most recent word on the Consumer Price Index, but certainly not the first and almost certainly not the last. Other studies have estimated the bias in the price index over the years. The results are shown in Table 4, adapted from Table 1 in "Bias in the Consumer Price Index: What Is the Evidence?" by Bureau of Labor Statistics researcher Brent R. Moulton. The full sources for these estimates are given in that document, listed by the authors' names and the year of publication. Some studies have attempted to estimate an exact number, (that is, a "point estimate") and some have given a range of possible numbers, and some have given both, as shown.
| Recent Estimates of Bias in the U.S. Consumer Price Index | ||
|---|---|---|
| Author(s) | Point Estimate | Interval Estimate |
| Advisory Commission to Study the CPI (1995) | 1.0 | 0.7 - 2.0 |
| Michael Boskin (1995) | 1.5 | 1.0 - 2.0 |
| Congressional Budget Office (1995) | ---- | 0.2 - 0.8 |
| Michael R. Darby (1995) | 1.5 | 0.5 - 2.5 |
| W. Erwin Diewert (1995b) | ---- | 1.3 - 1.7 |
| Robert J. Gordon (1995) | 1.7 | ---- |
| Alan Greenspan (1995) | ---- | 0.5 - 1.5 |
| Zvi Griliches (1995) | 1.0 | 0.4 - 1.6 |
| Dale W. Jorgenson (1995) | 1.0 | 0.5 - 1.5 |
| Jim Klumpner (1996) | ---- | 0.3 - 0.5 |
| Lebow, Roberts, and Stockton (1994) | ---- | 0.4 - 1.5 |
| Ariel Pakes (1995) | 0.8 | ---- |
| Shapiro and Wilcox (1996) | 1.1 | 0.7 - 1.6 |
| Wynne and Sigalla (1994) | less than 1.0 | ---- |