Current Projects

Panel on Issues in Developing Cost-of-Living Indices for Indexing Federal Programs

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Background

The Panel on Issues in Developing Cost-of-Living Indices for Indexing Federal Programs was convened by the Committee on National Statistics, National Research Council, in January 1999. The panel is chaired by Charles Schultze, Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Brookings Institution.

The panel will investigate conceptual, measurement, statistical, and data issues in the development of cost-of-living indexes and assess the appropriate use of such indexes for indexing federal programs. Topics of the assessment will include the required frequency, the appropriateness of revisions, and the treatment of quality change and new products. The panel will make explicit assumptions and models underlying different approaches and outline a program of research and experimental measures to allow for further assessment and refinement of cost-of-living indexes.

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Roster

CHARLES SCHULTZE (Chair), The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC

ERNST BERNDT, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

ANGUS DEATON, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

ERWIN DIEWERT, Department of Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC

CLAUDIA GOLDIN, Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

CHRISTOPHER JENCKS, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

ALBERT MADANSKY, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

VAN DOORN OOMS, Committee for Economic Development, Washington, DC

ROBERT POLLACK, John M. Olin School of Business, Washington University, St. Louis, MO

RICHARD SCHMALENSEE, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

NORBERT SCHWARZ, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

KIRK WOLTER, National Opinion Research Center, Chicago, IL

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Staff

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Publications