[unimployed]

>The uncertainty principle If it happens on a sufficiently large scale, the practice of tweaking quality in lieu of price could play havoc with essential economic data. Statistical agencies do their best to account for changing product quality, but if adjustments are unexpectedly common or subtle then muted inflation figures could easily be concealing a more turbulent economic picture. Central banks watching for big swings in inflation or wage growth as a sign of trouble could be reacting to figures that bear far less relation to business conditions than they used to.

>What’s more, the substitution of quality for price as firms’ main way of responding to changing market conditions weakens the case for keeping inflation low and stable. Inflation makes relative prices less informative, economists reckon, making it harder to decide what to buy and how to spend. Rather than clarity, low inflation has brought a different sort of confusion: one of shrinking chocolate bars and lost holidays.

What has long been suspected by those outside the field, and rarely acknowledged by economists and statisticians inside the field. Consumer Price Index (CPI), a standard methodology of nearly every national bureau of statistics and economic measurement is susceptible to manipulation and gaming by producers and retailers because the statistical agencies employ limited resources to perform quality adjustments to the item price data.

The adjustment methodology is quite limited in what adjustments are made and the resources dedicated to comparing items and differences—there is no lab testing being performed and the most extensive research performed on some items is using product brochure data to make adjustments based on listed features at face value only (the brochure says this is better or comes with better features).

Often product data is limited so no adjustments are made, only assumptions like “we believe this product has the same quality or content” or “we will impute the missing price or data based on similarly available data or some kind of modeling abstraction.”

This standard methodology led by the U.S. BLS and other agencies has done a complete disservice to the reputability of economics as a hard science instead of a bureaucratic ideology.

[appleiigs]

> rarely acknowledged by economists and statisticians inside the field.

This is complete false. If you ever took an Econ 101 course, you'd know the fallibility of economic stats are covered at length.

[unimployed]

Pretty sure you are being sarcastic or you are not all that experienced.

Talk at length with most economic professionals on /r/economics and you will find the repeatedly stated and unstated views that “the CPI is the most studied economic measurement in the world” and “you are welcome to perform your own study covering the inadequacies of the CPI.” I paraphrased slightly but from memory those quotes are highly accurate, as well as the general dismissiveness and institutionalism/bias pertaining to official economic data. Also for a professional economist to question the accuracy of official economic data is career suicide. Why you rarely see that topic discussed by a professional economist or in a published study.

[thesagan]

I've seen this pattern in academic settings myself.

There's simply a lot of tunnel vision. Although, as a parent comment pointed out (a bit rudely) there's acknowledgement of various shortcomings of measures such as CPI, there's also a tendency to assume these models are accurate in policy-setting institutions.

I'd say they're maybe as accurate as predicting weather in the Great Lakes Region.

Also: r/economics should not be representative of economists, as a group. (Although they do parrot a lot of bank and government economist views.) Most posters there strike me as undergrads, who are mostly clueless to the fuzzy subtleties of the study (and life in general.)

[VHRanger]

Mod of r/economics here.

If you want informed people on economics on reddit, go to r/badeconomics which is the more tightly knit hangout for professional economists and grad students.

Otherwise, go to the economics cluster on twitter. r/economics is like r/news with an econ twist. It's too large to effectively moderate.

[nabla9]

r/badeconomics is great place to lurk for a layman who wants to learn.

The problem for layman like me interested in economics is that you have absorbed so much wrong views and explanations from the news and political commentary that you must work hard to unlearn them before you can start learning.

[unimployed]

My experience is from bureau members and long time members I’m able to identify as professionals. I’m well aware of the population of undergrad and econ101 members that are fairly easy to identify as well.

If you know of any sources that are well known references that acknowledge the shortcomings of BLS methodologies I would be interested in reading up on them. I have not seen those kind of discussions frequently in publications.

[prepend]

“the CPI is the most studied economic measurement in the world” and it being fallible are not exclusive.

I had a great Econ 101 professor. He spend quite a few lectures breaking down how much these key stat suck. Then we spent the rest of the time using them for study because that’s what we have.

The key message he drilled into me was that 1) don’t be so certain of your results (or at least don’t sound like an asshole making pronouncements on things) 2) data are expensive to gather and there aren’t many alternatives; don’t ignore them because they have flaws

[unimployed]

I agree, but generally the assumptions being made by authors and known issues with the data are unstated rather than stated. Further, when highlighting such issues, the reactions can often be negative and dismissive. Obviously people don’t like their work being criticized for reasons that they have little control over (it sucks but that’s the best data we have). My point is the topic doesn’t get discussed enough to improve—outside of some corners of academics.

[ggm]

Viewed from one bottom, the quality of toilet paper is of intense interest. Viewed across many bottoms it becomes less about how peachy soft the Charmian is and more about the effect in the balance of payments importing bumwad instead of making your own from local splinters in a pulp mill employing people.

CPI has to bridge both cheeks: it has to reflect what one person can relate to and what entire nations actually do.

[unimployed]

And still, we need to have accurate pricing data (reflecting quality and content) if we want to make accurate macroeconomic decisions in a modern age where the historical understanding of inflation and full employment appears to be broken, among other concerns your bum and most bums could appreciate—like the immediate effects of technological change and automation pertaining to your job or UBI... that gives your bum a cozy chair to sit in.