В заявлении FOMC statement of longer-run goals and policy strategy от 25 января 2012 года сказано, что ориентиром для принятии решений является personal consumption expenditures (PCE).

The Committee judges that inflation at the rate of 2 percent, as measured by the annual change in the price index for personal consumption expenditures.

[www.federalreserve.gov]

Consumer Price Index (CPI) расчитывается Bureau of Labor Statistics, в то время как Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) расчитывается Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), т.е. двумя разными агентствами.

У двух индексов разные базы, разные источники данных и разные веса для одинаковых групп услуг и товаров.

Индексы сильно коррелированы, но бывают моменты, когда они идут в разных направлениях.

Когда Бернанку на прессконференции спросили, почему был выбран PCE, а не CPI, он ответил, что PCE был выбран по техническим моментам, он лучше отражает изменения в покупательском поведении, включает в себя медицинские расходы и не включает цены на недвижимость, проще считается, проще собираются данные и т.п.

Sure. Well, we chose the PCE index for some, I think, very valid technical reasons. It better allows—better accounts for changes in people’s purchasing patterns; you know, when some things become more expensive, people will tend to move to other types of goods and services. That’s not accounted for by the CPI, which has fixed weights. It also—the PCE—I think more relevant to the average person, the PCE includes all health-care
costs, and that has two benefits. One is, it reduces the share of the inflation index which is tied to housing. And the CPI has a very large share devoted to housing, and a large share of that part of the index is imputed—that is, essentially made-up numbers. So that’s one benefit, to keep the—you know, not to put too much weight on the imputed housing numbers, which is part of the CPI. The other is that, even if people are not paying for health care immediately out-of-pocket, they do pay for it, either through taxes or through reduced wages as, you know, increased health-care costs raise insurance premiums for employers. So I think this is probably a better measure of the inflation that’s faced by typical consumers than the CPI is. That being said, these various measures—the CPI and others, PCE index and others—move very closely together, and you’re not going to have a situation where the CPI is 10 percent and the PCE is 2 percent. There may be a few tenths difference, but, generally speaking, they move very closely together. So, in that respect, I think if people look at the CPI, they should feel pretty comfortable that, you know, that’s going to be very close to where the PCE inflation is.

[www.federalreserve.gov]......