The Consumer Price Index is probably the most well-known index number published by the government. The CPI is also a statistic that has also been very controversial in recent years, primarily because of its role in adjusting government spending and taxes. In this seminar Mr. Greenlees will briefly describe how the index is constructed, review its major uses, and summarize the reasons that the index is often said to be "biased." He will then discuss several design issues and problems with which the BLS is currently dealing in its continuing process of updating and improving the CPI.

John S. Greenlees is the Assistant Commissioner for Consumer Prices and Price Indexes at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. His primary responsibility is managing the Consumer Price Index program, including the decennial CPI revision effort now underway. Prior to coming to the BLS in July of 1995, he served as Director of the Office of Economic Analysis at the Department of the Treasury, where he was responsible for reports and memoranda on a wide variety of policy issues such as Social Security, insurance industry regulation, and the geographic distribution of Federal budget impacts. From 1982 to 1985, he was Chief of the Price and Index Number Research Division at BLS. He is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, and also holds a Ph.D. in Economics from UCLA.