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Where are the inflationary pressures? The BLS reported on Thursday that the inflation rate as measured by the headline CPI has been 1.6% over the last year. Excluding food and energy, the inflation rate would be 1.0%. The MIT Billion Prices Project is recording a slightly higher inflation rate for the U.S. of about 2.5%.

Some commenters have been claiming that the MIT Billion Price Index is telling a very different story from the official Consumer Price Index. So I guess it’s worth pointing out that it really matches pretty well. What you need to realize is that the Billion Price Index, inevitably, only covers goods — not services. So

To track inflation, each month the Bureau of Labor Statistics canvasses businesses and records the price of, say, a 4.4-pound bag of golden delicious apples, among hundreds of other items. The agency dials land lines to survey how consumers spend their money. It’s essentially the same process the BLS has used for half a century.

How a new online tool can help measure inflation as accurately as — and more quickly than — traditional methods. Inflation is a crucial economic indicator, since rising prices can hurt consumers and trigger political discontent. It is also hard to measure. In the United States, Bureau of Labor Statistics employees track over 20,000 prices

At 23,000 retailers and businesses in 90 U.S. cities, hundreds of government workers find and note prices on very precise products. And I’m not kidding when I say “very precise.”

Economists are creating new methods for tracking prices. At some 23,000 retailers and businesses in 90 U.S. cities, hundreds of government workers find and mark down prices on very precise products. And I’m not kidding when I say “very precise.”

Measuring inflation is a time-consuming business: at the beginning of each month, government researchers across the country amass troves of data on prices for everything from shoes to milk to phones. Two weeks after the end of the month, the government releases gauges of inflation like the Consumer Price Index. But inflation hunters may now

The Billion Prices Project (BPP), an initiative started by a pair of alumni who are MIT Sloan School of Management professors, collects prices from hundreds of online retailers around the world on a daily basis to create an Internet-based resource that measures price changes from around the world and gives real-time inflation estimates.

Justin Lahart is among those calling attention to the Billion Prices Project of MIT Professors Roberto Rigobon and Alberto Cavallo. The basic idea of the Billion Prices Project is to automate search of websites around the world that report prices at which various vendors are offering to sell specific items.