Crossley, T. F. and Pendakur, K.
The common-scaling social cost-of-living index
Journal of Business and Economic Statistics
Vol. 28(FAVOURITE 3 (FOR CROSSLEY)) no. 4 pp. 523-538 (2010)
Abstract: If preferences or budgets are heterogeneous across people (as they clearly are), then individual cost-of-living indexes are also heterogeneous. Thus, any social cost-of-living index faces an aggregation problem. In this article, we provide a solution to this problem that we call a “common-scaling†social cost-of-living index (CS-SCOLI). In addition, we describe nonparametric methods for estimating such social cost-of-living indexes. As an application, we consider changes in the social cost-of-living in the U.S. between 1988 and 2000.
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Publisher's Link: http://amstat.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1198/jbes.2009.06139#.UiR-YzbEOGM 
