Calculation Of a Consumer Price Index

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Following the broad agreement that the rate of inflation pushes the economies of various countries from the good circle of investment and savings towards the harmful concentration of immediate consumption and trading; Inflation has become a key measure of the success of most governments fiscal and monetary policy throughout the world, making the collection, compilation and publication of accurate and timely Consumer Price Indices (CPI) a matter of great importance. Although today you need at least three thousand kwacha to travel any short distance on public bus transport in Lusaka, life was very different 10 years ago. In Lusaka a bus ticket from Kulima Tower bus terminus to Chelstone Market was only five hundred kwacha. Such has been the trend in our economy; most prices tend to rise over time. This increase in the overall level of prices is called inflation. In this essay, a case study of the method through which the central statistical office measures inflation will be discussed. The Central Statistical Office which shall be referred to as CSO in this essay is the agent of government that has been entrusted with the responsibility to provide up to date and reliable statistics about the country’s social and economic activities. CSO is established by the Census and Statistics Act, Cap 425 of the laws of Zambia. CSO’s October 2011 consumer price index release document defines inflation as follows; “The annual rate of inflation is the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all items of the relevant month of the current year compared with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all items of the same month in the previous year.” This definition means that Inflation is a term applied to a situation in which there is a persistent tendency for the general level of prices to rise. The rate of inflation over the past twelve months is, in effect, telling us

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