CONSUMER PRICE INDEX, a technical device for comparing the cost of living in different time periods or in different geographical locations. Such information is useful to government agencies as a guide for public policy, to individuals who wish to compare the effective incomes they would receive from jobs at different locations, and to business firms (and labor unions) in which wages are geared to the index.

消费者价格指数，一种用于比较不同时期或不同地理位置生活成本的技术设计。此类信息对于政府机构作为公共政策的指南，对于希望比较他们从不同地区的工作中获得有效收入的个人，以及对于工资与指数挂钩的商业公司（和工会）都是很有用的。

The U. S. Burean of Labor Statistics issues its consumer price index monthly after collecting data from 50 cities to cover about 300 goods and services. Its national statistics include special group indexes such as “food” and “services.”

美国劳工统计局在收集了50个城市，涵盖约300种商品和服务的数据后，每月都会发布其消费者价格指数。其国家统计数字包括如“食品”和“服务”等特殊群体指数。

The consumer price index shows the percentage by which weighted average retail prices at one time or place differ from those of another time or place. For this, the relative amounts of each good or service consumed must be taken into account. For example, a 10% rise in perfume prices would mean much less to people who spend 1/1,000 of their income for perfume than would a 10% rise in food prices to people who spend one third of their income for food. The problem of the exact composition of the index is handled by weighting the various items according to their relative importance in the “consumers’ market basket.”

消费者价格指数显示了一时或一地的加权平均零售价格与另一个一时或一地的加权平均零售价格的百分比差异。为此，必须考虑到每种商品或服务消耗的相对数量。例如，香水价格上涨10%对那些将收入的千分之一用于购买香水的人来说影响不大，而食品价格上涨10%对那些将收入的三分之一用于购买食品的人来说影响则要大得多。指数的确切构成问题是根据它们在“消费者市场篮子中”的相对重要性，通过加权各项来处理的。

One difficulty is that the “consumers’ market basket” seldom remains constant. For example, fuel is a large element of living costs in northern Wisconsin but is negligible in Florida. Education is a negligible element of living costs in Wisconsin because of the excellent public schools there, but education is an important element of living costs in certain areas where good schools are private rather than public. The same problem exists in making price comparisons in time: television did not exist 50 years ago, and buggies do not exist now. Tastes also have changed because of improved education and generally higher incomes. In short, the index is involved with composition differences as well as with price differences.

困难之一是，“消费者市场篮子”很少保持不变。例如，在威斯康星州北部，燃料是生活成本的重要元素，而在佛罗里达州则是微不足道的。教育在威斯康星州是一个微不足道的元素，因为那里有优秀的公立学校，但在好学校是私立的而非公立的某些地区，教育是生活成本的重要元素。在价格随时间进行比较时也存在相同的问题：50年前电视并不存在，而现在已没有了四轮马车。由于教育的提高和普遍的较高收入，品味也发生了变化。总之，该指数涉及成分差异和价格差异。

So long as the “consumers’ market basket” remains fairly constant between the time periods or the locations compared, the error attributable to compositional differences is rather negligible. Where large “market basket” differences are involved, no solution is completely satisfactory. The usual compromise is to weight the commodities according to their average consumption in the places or times being compared.

只要“消费者市场篮子”在时间段或地点比较之间保持相对稳定，那么由构成差异引起的误差就微不足道。如果涉及到较大的“市场篮子”差异，就没有完全令人满意的解决方案。通常的折中办法是根据在比较地区或时间内它们的平均消费量对商品进行加权。

                    WARREN J. BILKEY, University of Wisconsin

                     沃伦· J. 比尔基，威斯康星大学

                              2025年10月21日译

（译者注：该词条位列《大美百科全书》1985年版，第7卷，第682页）