Food and beverages price data from a leading online marketplace is used to compute an online price index. This index successfully tracks the official consumer price index not only at the aggregate level, but also at the subgroup level. The results indicate that online prices can be a quick and efficient source of price data, which can provide a cheap, but credible, signal of inflationary pressures on a real-time basis.
Food and beverages price data from a leading online marketplace is used to compute an online price index. This index successfully tracks the official consumer price index not only at the aggregate level, but also at the subgroup level. The results indicate that online prices can be a quick and efficient source of price data, which can provide a cheap, but credible, signal of inflationary pressures on a real-time basis.
