A multivariate procedure towards composite estimation of consumer expenditure for the U.S. consumer price index numbers

We consider the problem of estimating the “cost weights” and “relative importances” of different item strata for the local market basket areas. The estimation of these parameters is needed to construct the U.S. Consumer Price Index Numbers. We use multivariate models to construct composite estimators which combine information from relevant sources. The mean squared errors (MSE) of the proposed and the existing estimators are estimated using the repeated half samples available from the survey. Based on our numerical results, the proposed estimators seem to be superior to the existing estimators.