The Center for Inflation and Price Research seeks to improve the understanding of price determination among the public, policy makers and researchers. By price determination we mean why some goods or services are more expensive than others, how and why prices change over time (inflation) and why prices of identical (or highly comparable) items differ across locations, often by large amounts and in a sustained fashion. Many of the challenges in understanding prices and inflation arise either because of a paucity of data or a large amount of unstructured data. For this reason, the CIPR seeks to archive micro-data on prices for public use (and direct visitors to data sources). More importantly, the price data are narrated by a formal economic way of thinking to deepen our understanding of the market and non-market forces at work to determine prices and assess implications for consumer welfare, firm efficiencies and economic policy.
As an outward-facing center, we welcome data contributions of other researchers and draw attention to research data and methods that deepen our understanding of price determination. Some of public archives made available here have been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation. The grant numbers and principal investigators are identified on the sub-pages where those data are found. The content published hereon reflects those of the authors and contributors and not the view of the National Science Foundation. The CIPR is not responsible for any errors or omissions in data or codes.
International and intranational price data at the level of individual goods and services are a rare and valuable research commodity with many practical and policy applications. The CIPR seeks to inform the public about the utility of price data, post samples for educational and research purposes and point to additional related resources.
