Chapter 2 MEASURING THE COST OF LIVING

Calculate the CPI 【计算题】

题干A：

Assuming the basket used to calculate CPI is composed of 10 pounds beef and 20 pounds chicken.

Prices of beef and chicken in each year are shown in the table:

year	price of beef	price of chicken
2010	$4	$4
2011	$5	$5
2012	$9	$6

a-1:

Compute the cost of CPI basket for each year.

a-2:

Compute the CPI in every year using 2010 as the base year.

a-3:

What was the inflation rate measured by CPI in 2012?

题干B：

Continue the example in 题干A. The more realistic case is that households bought CPI basket {10 pounds beef, 20 pounds chicken} in 2010 and 2011, but they bought a basket {5 pounds beef, 25 pounds chicken} in 2012.

b-1:

Why households bought different quantities of beef and chicken in 2012 than they did in 2011?

b-2:

Compute the real cost of household basket in 2012.

b-3:

Compute percentage increase in cost of household basket over 2011–2012.

b-4:

Which percentage increase (results for <a-3> or results for <b-3>) you think more accurately measures the true increase in the cost of living for this example? （a-3 和b-3的计算结果，你认为哪一个百分比增长更能准确反映居民生活成本的真实变化？）

【Data processing 素质拓展】:

1. 请查阅国家统计局官网：http://www.stats.gov.cn/

通过数据查询，查找我国CPI月度数据（过去12个月）、GDP年度数据（过去10年）

将数据复制到Excel中，整理制作美观的折线图。

2. 请查询美国联邦储备经济数据官网：https://fred.stlouisfed.org/categories

查找美国CPI月度数据（过去12个月）、GDP年度数据（过去10年）

下载数据Excel文件，整理制作美观的折线图。