My comment:
(a) In her '新常态':中国经济面临的六大瓶颈 (1)--published at the same website yesterday--she explained at teh outset: "【说明:本文是我于 5 月 3 日在加拿大温哥华 '咸氏国际论坛' 的公开演讲。 * * * 】"
(i) 咸氏金融集团 Shenglin Financial Inc (总裁 咸生林 President Shenglin Xian, who graduated from Henan Normal University, immigrated to Canada in 1990 and formed Shenglin Financial--Bloomberg's company profile says "company's line of business" is "the underwriting of life insurance")
(ii) 咸氏金融 sponsored 咸氏国际论坛 (the latter has not English name; for the first time as far as I can tell; the talk was held on May 3, 2015; the speakers were: (按汉语拼音为序)1程晓农, 2丁果, 3冯崇义, 4何清涟; 5茅于轼, 6Shannon TIEZZ 夏舒:美国外交官杂志时事评论员, 7吴国光, 8吴伟, 9信力健; 10杨恒均, 12张博树)
(iii) There is no need to read her (1) or the rest of (2).
(b) In chronological order.
(i) 苏曼丽, 周小川:可用 '池子' 对抗热钱流入; 称美联储新一轮量化宽松政策或对全球经济产生副作用. 新京报, Nov 6, 2010.
epaper.bjnews.com.cn/html/2010-11/06/content_165619.htm
(ii) 苏曼丽, 周小川:典型的 '池子' 是外储; 称对于热钱,总量上要控制,但个体上并没有阻止它们赚点钱;专家称热钱进入的套利空间至少5%-7%. 新京报, Dec 17, 2010.
* Mr Zhou offered no theoretical basis. Further, there was no serious debates in the definitions, operation, or merits. So I am clueless about 池子理论, which I learn of today.
作者: choi 时间: 5-10-2015 11:27
(c) I am intrigued by the following statement: "中国发了这么多钞票,但从基本生活用品来看,通胀率似乎不高,主要是因为消费物价指数(CPI)当中没将房地产计算进去,美国是将房地产价格计入CPI的。如果房地产价格上涨被计入CPI, 中国的通胀率会相当高。" Specifically I want to know more about consumer price index (CPI).
(i) CPI在中国. 中华人民共和国国家统计局, undated. www.stats.gov.cn/ztjc/tjzs/cpizzg/
(A) 房屋价格为什么没有纳入CPI的计算. 国家统计局城市司, Feb 19, 2009 www.stats.gov.cn/ztjc/tjzs/cpizzg/200902/t20090219_67270.html
("我国CPI居住类调查的项目不少,包括:①建房及装修材料,比如木材、水泥、砖瓦灰砂石、电料、漆等。②租房,主要是公房房租、私房房租。③水、电、天然气、液化石油气、煤炭的花费。④自有住房,如购房贷款利率、物业费、各种房屋维修费等")
(B) 为什么商品房没有纳入CPI统计? 国家统计局城市司, Sept 24, 2007 www.stats.gov.cn/ztjc/tjzs/cpizzg/200709/t20070924_67263.html
(same)
(ii) CPI in US.
(A) Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Department of Labor, started CPI in 1919, made changes along the way, and published it (actually a lot of indexes under the name CPI) on a monthly basis.
(B) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). In Consumer Price Index. BLS, undated.
stats.bls.gov/cpi/cpifaq.htm
I find the entire Web page interesting. So I will not quote. I only wish to point out:
* Q7. "What goods and services does the CPI cover? [A: The categories include] HOUSING (rent of primary residence, owners' equivalent rent, fuel oil [to heat the house], bedroom furniture)."
note: “美国是将房地产价格计入CPI的。” Arguably Ms 何 is wrong; my reading is US and China apply similar if not the same criteria in CPI calculation. CPI in US does not incorporate 房地产 价格 property values. See
How the CPI measures price change of Owners' equivalent of rent of primary residence (OER) and Rent of primary residence (Rent). BLS, April 2009 www.bls.gov/cpi/cpifacnewrent.pdf
(at page 1 of 11: "Housing units are not in the CPI market basket. Like most other economic series, the CPI views housing units as capital (or investment) goods and not as consumption items. Spending to purchase and improve houses and other housing units is investment and not consumption. Shelter, the service the housing units provide, is the relevant consumption item for the CPI. The cost of shelter for renter-occupied housing is rent. For an owner-occupied unit, the cost of shelter is the implicit rent that owner occupants would have to pay if they were renting their homes")
* Q21. "What are some limitations of the CPI? [A: * * *] The CPI cannot be used as a measure of total change in living costs because changes in these costs are affected by factors (such as social and environmental changes and changes in income taxes) that are beyond the definitional scope of the index and so are excluded."
A4 elaborates on this: "[Q4. Is the CPI a cost-of-living index?] * * * Both the CPI and a cost-of-living index would reflect changes in the prices of goods and services, such as food and clothing, that are directly purchased in the marketplace; but a complete cost-of-living index would go beyond this role to also take into account changes in other governmental or environmental factors that affect consumers' well-being. It is very difficult to determine the proper treatment of public goods, such as safety and education, and other broad concerns, such as health, water quality, and crime, that would constitute a complete cost-of-living framework."
* Overview. In In Consumer Price Index. BLS, undated www.bls.gov/cpi/cpiovrvw.htm
("Indexes are available for two population groups: a CPI for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) which covers approximately 87 percent of the total population and a CPI for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) which covers 32 percent of the population")
See the CPI menu in the left column of the Web page.
“BLS also calculates an experimental CPI for the elderly, or CPI-E, by using households whose reference person or spouse is 62 years of age or older. In 2009–2010, approximately 24 percent of all consumer units met the CPI-E's definition of having a reference person or spouse 62 years of age or older.” (Wiki pages does not mention this “experimental” nature of CPI-E, so I discount those Wiki pages.
(C) BLS started producing chained CPI in 2002.
* Frequently Asked Questions about the Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (C-CPI-U). In In Consumer Price Index. BLS, undated www.bls.gov/cpi/cpisupqa.htm
Q2. "What is substitution and substitution bias? And does the C-CPI-U eliminate it? [A: * * *] For example, pork and beef are two separate CPI item categories. If the price of pork increases while the price of beef does not, consumers might shift away from pork to beef. The C-CPI-U is designed to account for this type of consumer substitution between CPI item categories. In this example, the C-CPI-U would rise, but not by as much as an index that was based on fixed purchase patterns. * * *
note: Wiki gives the following example. There is no need to read the rest of this Wiki page. United States Chained Consumer Price Index
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Chained_Consumer_Price_Index
("The weights for CPI-U and CPI-W are currently updated in January of every even-numbered year to correct for ‘substitution bias,’ the idea that consumers will change their buying patterns to keep their cost of living from rising as quickly as inflation. To understand 'substitution bias,' consider for example the price of Granny Smith apples. If that increases, consumers may decide to purchase more Red Delicious apples; this 'lower-level' substitution bias is accounted for in the current CPI-U and CPI-W. However, if consumers respond to this price increase by purchasing fewer apples and more oranges, this changes the 'market basket' of goods they buy; this 'upper-level' substitution is not accounted for in the traditional CPI until the next adjustment which could be up to two years later, but impacts the Chained CPI (C-CPI-U) the next month")
"Q4. "How is the C-CPI-U constructed and how is it different from the CPI-U and CPI-W? [A: * * * ] It is at this second stage where the C-CPI-U is different from the CPI-U and CPI-W. The use of a superlative formula for upper-level aggregation, used in the final C-CPI-U, is designed to address consumer substitution across item categories. In contrast, the CPI-U and CPI-W use a formula that assumes consumers do not substitute across item categories. * * *
note: Do not worry about the word "superlative." I do not understand it after reading, "The theory underlying the C-CPI-U was based largely on the [1976] work of W Erwin Diewert, who demonstrated that a family of indexes, termed superlative, could be calculated that provided a close approximation to a COLI [cost-of-living-index] using only the observable price and quantity data."
Q6. "Is it possible for the C-CPI-U to increase faster than the CPI-U? [A:] At lower levels, and for short periods of time, it is possible for the C-CPI-U to increase faster than the CPI-U. That said, the evidence suggests that the C-CPI-U over time will trend slightly lower than the CPI-U.