Google to create price index
From the article
Google’s chief economist, Hal Varian, highlights how economic data can be gathered far more rapidly using online sources. The official Consumer Price Index data are collected by hand from shops, and only published monthly with a time lag of several weeks.
It goes on to explain that it cannot replace the CPI because not all goods correlate between the two. (i.e., cameras, watches, and books do correlate unsurprisingly, but household goods such as food, cleaning supplies, etc. do not.) Still, it will be interesting to see hard data from the GPI in real time when (if) if becomes available.
