There are two economic acronyms that should ring a bell even with those who aren’t experts: GDP and CPI. They’re two of the most important government statistics regarding the economy: The first, the gross domestic product, measures a country’s economic output, while the second, the consumer price index, records the rises and falls of the prices of everyday goods—which, when combined together, describe inflation. Accurate measurements of GDP and CPI are hugely important for central bankers, because they use those determine monetary policy.
In the last decade, though, the government has had a harder time measuring CPI.
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