Comparative Study of Analytical Consumer Price Indexes for Different Subgroups of the Reference Population - ARCHIVED

The reference population for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has been represented, since the 1992 updating of the basket of goods and services, by families and unattached individuals living in private urban or rural households. The official CPI is a measure of the average percentage change over time in the cost of a fixed basket of goods and services purchased by Canadian consumers.

Because of the broadly defined target population of the CPI, the measure has been criticised for failing to reflect the inflationary experiences of certain socio-economic groups. This study examines this question for three sub-groups of the reference population of the CPI. It is an extension of earlier studies on the subject done at Statistics Canada.

In this document, analytical consumer price indexes sub-group indexes are compared to the analytical index for the whole population calculated at the national geographic level.

The findings tend to point to those of earlier Statistics Canada studies on sub-groups in the CPI reference population. Those studies have consistently concluded that a consumer price index established for a given sub-group does not differ substantially from the index for the whole reference population.