Improving the Measurement of Consumer Expenditures (Volume 74) (National Bureau of Economic Research Studies in Income and Wealth)

Robust and reliable measures of consumer expenditures are essential for analyzing aggregate economic activity and for measuring differences in household circumstances. Many countries, including the United States, are embarking on ambitious projects to redesign surveys of consumer expenditures, with the goal of better capturing economic heterogeneity. This is an appropriate time to examine the way consumer expenditures are currently measured, and the challenges and opportunities that alternative approaches might present. __Improving the Measurement of Consumer Expenditures__ begins with a comprehensive review of current methodologies for collecting consumer expenditure data. Subsequent chapters highlight the range of different objectives that expenditure surveys may satisfy, compare the data available from consumer expenditure surveys with that available from other sources, and describe how the United States’s current survey practices compare with those in other nations. Many countries including the U.S. are now embarking on multiyear projects to redesign their surveys of household expenditures. This volume presents work by many of the world’s leading experts on consumption measurement meant to illuminate the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. The aim of the volume, in broadest terms, is to provide a knowledge base for use of agencies and researchers as they design new systems for measurement of household expenditures. To that end, the volume includes a comprehensive set of chapters describing the current status and use of the U.S. Consumer Expenditure (CE) survey, with a focus on documenting the key deficiencies that the redesign process is meant to address; a number of chapters describing new modes of data collection (including the use of scanner data, internet panels, and administrative data from government and private sources); chapters outlining the importance of various objectives that such surveys might satisfy, ranging from estimation of price and income elasticities to studying the differential evolution of income and consumption inequality; chapters describing comparisons of the data available from other existing sources to those obtainable from an expenditure survey; comparisons of alternative approaches and results in different countries; and much more. The chapters in this volume were written around the same time that the National Academy of Science released its report on the Bureau of Labor Statistics proposed redesign for the US CE survey, and the two approaches provide complementary perspectives on the pros and cons of various proposed redesign strategies Robust and reliable measures of consumer expenditures are essential for analyzing aggregate economic activity and for measuring differences in household circumstances. Many countries, including the United States, are embarking on ambitious projects to redesign surveys of consumer expenditures, with the goal of better capturing economic heterogeneity. This is an appropriate time to examine the way consumer expenditures are currently measured, and the challenges and opportunities that alternative approaches might present.      

Improving the Measurement of Consumer Expenditures begins with a comprehensive review of current methodologies for collecting consumer expenditure data. Subsequent chapters highlight the range of different objectives that expenditure surveys may satisfy, compare the data available from consumer expenditure surveys with that available from other sources, and describe how the United States’s current survey practices compare with those in other nations. Robust and reliable measures of consumer expenditures are essential for analyzing aggregate economic activity and for measuring differences in household circumstances. Many countries, including the United States, are embarking on ambitious projects to redesign surveys of consumer expenditures, with the goal of better capturing economic heterogeneity. This is an appropriate time to examine the way consumer expenditures are currently measured, and the challenges and opportunities that alternative approaches might present. 'Improving the Measurement of Consumer Expenditures' begins with a comprehensive review of current methodologies for collecting consumer expenditure data. Subsequent chapters highlight the range of different objectives that expenditure surveys may satisfy, compare the data available from consumer expenditure surveys with that available from other sources, and describe how the United States's current survey practices compare with those in other nations.-- Provided by publisher Offers a review of the methodologies for collecting consumer expenditure data. This book includes chapters that highlight the range of different objectives that expenditure surveys may satisfy, compare the data available from consumer expenditure surveys with that available from other sources, and more.