engleski

Statistical Problems with Inflation Measures in Transition Countries

National accounts series should consist of data that are expressed in constant price series. The problem arises when the price indices are to be calculated. Fixed basket of goods and services becomes less and less representative over time as consumers respond to price changes and new choices. This is particularly due case in the age of 'new economy', globalization and in the case of 'transition countries'. Goods and services become more and more diversified and get much more sophisticated performance. The main sources of bias are introduction of new products and quality change. The result could be overestimated Laspeyres price indices. If it is such, GDP and other economic series could be underestimated, so leading to wrong decisions done by monetary and business authorities. Upward bias could create an automatic annual increase in indexed benefits and a real tax cut. Fast changes in business cycles could pose big problems for statistical agencies and thus making index numbers more complicated. These problems could be partially solved using hedonistic indices but it could be too expensive, particularly for transition countries. Also, big problems are with E-commerce and M-commerce, both very fast growing with very wide range of products emerging every day. Statistics should also be very cautious with the volume of sales since it is very difficult to determine how big quantity of goods are sold on discounted prices. Problem with transition countries is their change from socialism into some kind of 'wild capitalism', therefore forced to change their official statistics according to western standards, namely EU standards. The share of 'grey economy' and black market in GDP is much bigger in those countries than in EU. In Croatia, the situation is slightly better then in Eastern Europe because there were elements of market oriented economy even before transition. Now, transition countries are in process of adopting unified view according to EU statistics, i.e. harmonized consumer price index.

inflation; E-commerce; price indices; transition countries

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