Replication data for: A Cost-of-Living Dynamic Price Index, with an Application to Indexing Retirement Accounts

If a consumer wishes to protect her retirement account from the risk of price changes in order to sustain a stable standard of living, then what price index should the account be indexed to? This paper constructs a dynamic price index (DPI) that answers this question. Unlike the existing theory on price indices (which is static and certain), the DPI measures the cost of living for a consumer who lives for many periods and faces uncertainty. The first contribution of this research is to define this price index and study its theoretical properties. Like static price indices, the DPI is: independent of wealth, homogeneous of degree 1 in all prices, and higher if prices rise at a faster rate. Unlike static price indices, the DPI: is forward-looking, is affected by intertemporal substitution, responds by more to persistent shocks, includes assets prices, and distinguishes between durable and non-durable goods prices. The second contribution of the paper is to construct a DPI for the United States from 1970 to 2004. It differs markedly from the CPI in that: it is less serially correlated, more volatile, and a large part of its movements are driven by changes in the prices of houses and bonds. Both in theory and in practice, this paper finds that considering dynamics, intertemporal smoothing and uncertainty leads to a novel and strikingly different measure of the cost of living.