Inflationary Tendencies

Welcome to my blog. I write about topics in economics, statistics, and open source software (mostly so I don’t forget about it). All views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer or any affiliated organizations.

 

Making big multilateral indexes fast

Performance
Index numbers
R

Multilateral price indexes that use large volumes of transaction data can be challenging to compute. I show some tricks to calculate big indexes fast.

Nov 24, 2025
Steve Martin

How does the difference between the arithmetic and geometric mean depend on variance?

Inequalities
Index numbers
R

It’s well known that the arithmetic mean is larger than the geometric mean, but how does the difference between these means relate to variance?

Nov 12, 2025
Steve Martin

Hedonic imputation with one regression, not two

Index numbers
Econometrics
R

Hedonic imputation is a standard method to compare prices over time when the composition of products also changes. In all cases I’ve seen, the method is implemented by using the fitted values from two regression models. I show how it can be done with one regression.

Oct 27, 2025
Steve Martin

What causes inflation?

Index numbers
Python

Long-term inflation requires something that increase prices and grow without bound (i.e., money supply). I show that the way that inflation is measured can itself be a source of inflation.

Oct 22, 2025
Steve Martin

Decomposing diversity indexes

Index numbers
R

A diversity index is a way to measure the prevalence of different species in an ecosystem. I show how methods from the price-index literature can be used to decompose a diversity index into the contribution of each species towards overall diversity.

Oct 19, 2025
Steve Martin
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