Prices

1. What is the Consumer Price Index?
   The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the percentage change through time in the cost of purchasing a constant "basket" of goods and services representing the average pattern of purchases made by a particular population group in a specified time period. The "basket" is of an unchanging or equivalent quantity and quality of goods and services, consisting of items for which there are continually measurable market prices over time. Changes in the costs of items in the basket are therefore due only to "pure" price movements, i.e. price movements that are not associated with changes in the quality and / or quantity of the set of consumer goods and services in the basket.