The problem with the chart is if you adjust for quality, value for money in health care delivery has improved.
People are more overweight, less active and still live longer (in Australia). Some of this is less smoking. But some of it is better quality health care.
The options for diabetics, with metformin, ozempic etc. are game changing.
A great dilemma indeed... My intuition tells me to use what's most suited for a given problem under investigation. For example, if I was measuring "how much it cost to acquire a TV set now as compare to X years in the past", I would pick 0% inflation. Of course I could use secondary measure, like my income now and then to get additional "feel" for how big burden the purchase was for the household, now and then. For "progress related" analysis, quality adjusted measure is more suited. All in all, you have to pick the methodology which is better suited for what you are investigating.
Personally, I always prefer simple measures - so, nominal prices. CPI, median household income, etc. measures appear to be simple (and easy to obtain!) but they are really loaded with lots of assumptions which may not help in analysis of a specific phenomenon.
What I would like to see is using the hierarchy of needs put into CPI. Food, shelter & clothing being the greatest proportion. Probably is but too lazy to check 😆. I know prices per ounce have gone up considerably more than what the chart shows. Smaller boxes and less weight for higher prices. Although materials and resources for the most part have been stable or even lower in some cases (not lithium or fertilizers) but steel, wheat, corn, etc. I believe have been relatively stable. Farmers can produce more with technological improvements but equipment costs and fuel are higher. Don’t know why I am rambling on so I will stop with the disjointed thoughts.
In dollar denominated real price terms it fell - same nominal price, more features.
In real price terms in use and utility it rose - again use and utility of additional features.
That's why saying 'real' terms, it is not always clear if you just mean 'adjusted for inflation' aka nominal minus inflation or real in the terms of use.
It goes to show the language taxonomy of the economics 'industry' has competing, contradictory and inconsistent use of terms compared to everyday (English) language.
So can your question be sensibly answered? It all depends on your perspective of the word 'real'. My answer is Yes.
Nice post, but was disappointed when I realised your table wasn't about actual Kangaroos and Koalas.
The problem with the chart is if you adjust for quality, value for money in health care delivery has improved.
People are more overweight, less active and still live longer (in Australia). Some of this is less smoking. But some of it is better quality health care.
The options for diabetics, with metformin, ozempic etc. are game changing.
A great dilemma indeed... My intuition tells me to use what's most suited for a given problem under investigation. For example, if I was measuring "how much it cost to acquire a TV set now as compare to X years in the past", I would pick 0% inflation. Of course I could use secondary measure, like my income now and then to get additional "feel" for how big burden the purchase was for the household, now and then. For "progress related" analysis, quality adjusted measure is more suited. All in all, you have to pick the methodology which is better suited for what you are investigating.
Personally, I always prefer simple measures - so, nominal prices. CPI, median household income, etc. measures appear to be simple (and easy to obtain!) but they are really loaded with lots of assumptions which may not help in analysis of a specific phenomenon.
What I would like to see is using the hierarchy of needs put into CPI. Food, shelter & clothing being the greatest proportion. Probably is but too lazy to check 😆. I know prices per ounce have gone up considerably more than what the chart shows. Smaller boxes and less weight for higher prices. Although materials and resources for the most part have been stable or even lower in some cases (not lithium or fertilizers) but steel, wheat, corn, etc. I believe have been relatively stable. Farmers can produce more with technological improvements but equipment costs and fuel are higher. Don’t know why I am rambling on so I will stop with the disjointed thoughts.
In dollar denominated real price terms it fell - same nominal price, more features.
In real price terms in use and utility it rose - again use and utility of additional features.
That's why saying 'real' terms, it is not always clear if you just mean 'adjusted for inflation' aka nominal minus inflation or real in the terms of use.
It goes to show the language taxonomy of the economics 'industry' has competing, contradictory and inconsistent use of terms compared to everyday (English) language.
So can your question be sensibly answered? It all depends on your perspective of the word 'real'. My answer is Yes.