Alternative Consumer Price Indexes for Mexico

Abstract

The Consumer Price Index is a Laspeyres index which uses a plutocratic aggregate method. The Mexican CPI is not an exception. This paper has three purposes. The first purpose is to assemble a democratic CPI. The second purpose is to construct an alternative one using the median of the expenditure distribution. The third purpose is to compile price indexes for each one of the ten expenditure deciles. The concern about the use of a single price measurement has tremendous policy implications. In the last part the empirical results are analyzed in terms of the political economy of price measurement and in terms of the history of the monetary policy.