Current research themes

• Understanding and modelling inflation as a macroeconomic phenomenon which arises from microeconomic behaviour.
• Understanding and modelling the way prices and wages are determined in a way that is consistent with the microeconomic data on prices and wages.
• Developing better the design of price indices both in theory and in terms of better implementation from both an economic and statistical perspective.
• Integrating the behavioural approach to understand the consumer choice and the pricing behaviour of firms.
• Relating the micro data on inflationary expectations to the behaviour of consumers and inflation.
• Behavioural analysis of cognitive styles and consumer innovativeness in a range of areas such as brand choice, technology consumer behaviour, technology acceptance and electronic marketing services.

Collaborative research

Members of the CPI group collaborate with a range of academic and non-academic partners.  Examples include:

• Banque de France: Professor Huw Dixon was a Visiting Scholar funded by the Fondation Banque de France on the project ‘Nominal rigidities in France. Testing different pricing behaviour’ (2008-2010).
• Office for National Statistics: ‘Testing Item Selection Procedures on TNS Data’ (2011-2012).
• Kun Tian has been the principal investigator for both the China National Social Science Foundation project ‘Price rigidity and inflation dynamics under a DSGE framework’ (2011-2014) and the Social Science Foundation of Hunan Province China project ‘Study of price setting models’ (2010- 2012).
• Peking University and Xiangtan University: Kun Tian is part of a cross-institutional team managing a micro price dataset from the biggest Chinese online shopping website (Taobao.com).
• Bank of England: Professor Huw Dixon was an external consultant on a project with Stephen Millard, entitled ‘How should we respond to sector-specific shocks?’ (2010-2012).

Selected publications

• Heravi, S. and Morgan, P. H. 2014. Sampling schemes for price index construction: a performance comparison across the classification of individual consumption by purpose food groups. Journal of Applied Statistics 41 (7), pp.1453-1470. (10.1080/02664763.2014.881466)
• Cavalcanti, P. R. , Oliveira-Castro, J. M. and Foxall, G. R. 2013. Individual differences in consumer buying patterns: A behavioral economic analysis. The Psychological Record 63 (2), pp.259-276. (10.11133/j.tpr.2013.63.2.003)
• Foxall, G. R. and Sigurdsson, V. 2013. Introduction to the special issue: Consumer behavior analysis: Behavioral economics meets the marketplace [Editorial]. The Psychological Record 63 (2), pp.231-238. (10.11133/j.tpr.2013.63.2.001)
• Wells, V. K. and Foxall, G. R. 2013. Matching, demand, maximization, and consumer choice. The Psychological Record 63 (2), pp.239-258. (10.11133/j.tpr.2013.63.2.002)
• Dixon, H. and Tian, K. 2013. What we can learn about the behavior of firms from the average monthly frequency of price-changes: an application to the UK CPI data. Working paper. Cardiff: Cardiff University
• Dixon, H. D. 2012. A unified framework for using micro-data to compare dynamic time-dependent price-setting models. The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics 12 (1)(10.1515/1935-1690.2220)
• Dixon, H. D. and Le Bihan, H. 2012. Generalised Taylor and Generalised Calvo price and wage setting: micro-evidence with macro implications. Economic Journal 122 (560), pp.532-554. (10.1111/j.1468-0297.2012.02497.x)
• Dixon, H. D. and Kara, E. 2011. Contract length heterogeneity and the persistence of monetary shocks in a dynamic generalized Taylor economy. European Economic Review 55 (2), pp.280-292. (10.1016/j.euroecorev.2010.05.003)
• Foxall, G. R. 2010. Accounting for consumer choice: Inter-temporal decision making in behavioural perspective. Marketing Theory 10 (4), pp.315-345. (10.1177/1470593110382823)
• Dixon, H. D. and Kara, E. 2010. Can we explain inflation persistence in a way that is consistent with the microevidence on nominal rigidity?. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 42 (1), pp.151-170. (10.1111/j.1538-4616.2009.00282.x)
• Diewert, W. E. , Heravi, S. and Silver, M. 2009. Hedonic imputation versus time dummy hedonic indexes. In: Diewert, W. E. , Greenlees, J. S. and Hulten, C. R. eds. Price index concepts and measurement. NBER Book Series Studies in Income and Wealth Vol. 70.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. , pp.161-202.

Co-ordinator

Academic staff