Cook Islands Statistics Office

Consumer Price Index (CPI) – is a quarterly measure of the overall cost of goods and services bought by a typical household (consumer). It is a measure of the general price level in the country. Changes from one period to another (the inflation rate) indicate the general price movement. The Consumer Price Index covers price changes of the basket of goods and services consumed by all households on Rarotonga (the main island). The inclusion of an underlying measure is a recent improvement and it is published at the same time as the CPI. The underlying measure excludes items of a highly volatile nature, items that are subject to policy changes. It excludes some items fruits, vegetables, meat and fish, electricity rates, purchases of new and used motor vehicles, petrol and diesel, international airfares and domestic airfares. The CPI is calculated as chain-linked Jevons indices (change in the geometric average price). At the higher level, indices will be calculated with standard Laspeyres-type aggregation.