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This Canadian Consumer Price Index (CPI) Reference Paper provides an overview the Canadian CPI. It is intended for a varied audience, ranging from users interested in general information to those requiring more technical or theoretical details. As such, it explains all the important aspects of the Canadian CPI: uses and interpretations, scope, classifications, sample strategy, price collection, index calculation, quality change, weights, basket updates, reliability and uncertainty, special cases and treatments and history.

The publication highlights current and historical statistics on consumer prices and related price indexes. A comparative index contains retail price differentials for 11 major cities by selected groups of consumer goods and services.

This paper examines the methods of adjustment for quality change made in the Canadian Consumer Price Index for the period 1989 to 1994. It finds that in most cases the current Canadian practice ensures that the replacement of one commodity by another, one variety of a commodity by another, or one outlet by another, has no impact on the overall index. The main exceptions to this result occur when replacing varieties of commodities that are purchased only occasionally, and a judgement is made that the quality ratio between the old and new variety is not the same as the ratio of their prices. In these cases there is an impact on the index, up or down, depending on whether the change in price reported is higher or lower than the change in quality. From the experience of the CPI in these six years there has been a correlation between the price ratio of a variety and its replacement and the index movement that derives from the judgement. The direction and size of the impact on the index depends largely on whether an item is replaced with a higher or lower priced item. For these reasons, the paper argues that more attention should be paid to ensuring that the item selection is more representative of current sales than has traditionally been the case.

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.

The publication highlights current and historical statistics on consumer prices and related price indexes. A comparative index contains retail price differentials for 11 major cities by selected groups of consumer goods and services.

This paper examines the methods of adjustment for quality change made in the Canadian Consumer Price Index for the period 1989 to 1994. It finds that in most cases the current Canadian practice ensures that the replacement of one commodity by another, one variety of a commodity by another, or one outlet by another, has no impact on the overall index. The main exceptions to this result occur when replacing varieties of commodities that are purchased only occasionally, and a judgement is made that the quality ratio between the old and new variety is not the same as the ratio of their prices. In these cases there is an impact on the index, up or down, depending on whether the change in price reported is higher or lower than the change in quality. From the experience of the CPI in these six years there has been a correlation between the price ratio of a variety and its replacement and the index movement that derives from the judgement. The direction and size of the impact on the index depends largely on whether an item is replaced with a higher or lower priced item. For these reasons, the paper argues that more attention should be paid to ensuring that the item selection is more representative of current sales than has traditionally been the case.

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.

This Canadian Consumer Price Index (CPI) Reference Paper provides an overview the Canadian CPI. It is intended for a varied audience, ranging from users interested in general information to those requiring more technical or theoretical details. As such, it explains all the important aspects of the Canadian CPI: uses and interpretations, scope, classifications, sample strategy, price collection, index calculation, quality change, weights, basket updates, reliability and uncertainty, special cases and treatments and history.