economic / realtalk

common US price indices in an R package

realtalk

realtalk makes it easy to use common US price indexes in R.

Loading the data

realtalk is mostly a data package and includes several datasets of common US price indexes, like the CPI-U-RS:

library(realtalk)
cpi_u_rs_annual
#> # A tibble: 46 × 2
#>     year cpi_u_rs
#>    <dbl>    <dbl>
#>  1  1978     104.
#>  2  1979     114.
#>  3  1980     127.
#>  4  1981     139.
#>  5  1982     148.
#>  6  1983     154.
#>  7  1984     160.
#>  8  1985     166.
#>  9  1986     168.
#> 10  1987     174.
#> # ℹ 36 more rows

You can see what datasets are available by loading available_price_indexes:

available_price_indexes
#> # A tibble: 20 × 6
#>    index_name        frequency seasonal min_date max_date package_data_name     
#>    <chr>             <chr>     <chr>    <chr>    <chr>    <chr>                 
#>  1 C-CPI-U           annual    <NA>     2000     2023     c_cpi_u_annual        
#>  2 C-CPI-U           monthly   NSA      Dec 1999 May 2024 c_cpi_u_monthly_nsa   
#>  3 C-CPI-U           quarterly NSA      2000q1   2024q1   c_cpi_u_quarterly_nsa 
#>  4 C-CPI-U, extended annual    <NA>     1937     2023     c_cpi_u_extended_annu…
#>  5 C-CPI-U, extended monthly   NSA      Jan 1937 May 2024 c_cpi_u_extended_mont…
#>  6 C-CPI-U, extended monthly   SA       Jan 1947 May 2024 c_cpi_u_extended_mont…
#>  7 C-CPI-U, extended quarterly NSA      1937q1   2024q1   c_cpi_u_extended_quar…
#>  8 C-CPI-U, extended quarterly SA       1947q1   2024q1   c_cpi_u_extended_quar…
#>  9 CPI-U             annual    <NA>     1937     2023     cpi_u_annual          
#> 10 CPI-U             monthly   NSA      Jan 1937 May 2024 cpi_u_monthly_nsa     
#> 11 CPI-U             monthly   SA       Jan 1947 May 2024 cpi_u_monthly_sa      
#> 12 CPI-U             quarterly NSA      1937q1   2024q1   cpi_u_quarterly_nsa   
#> 13 CPI-U             quarterly SA       1947q1   2024q1   cpi_u_quarterly_sa    
#> 14 CPI-U-RS          annual    <NA>     1978     2023     cpi_u_rs_annual       
#> 15 CPI-U-RS          monthly   NSA      Dec 1977 Dec 2023 cpi_u_rs_monthly_nsa  
#> 16 CPI-U-X1          annual    <NA>     1967     1982     cpi_u_x1_annual       
#> 17 CPI-U-X1          monthly   NSA      Jan 1967 Dec 1982 cpi_u_x1_monthly_nsa  
#> 18 PCE               annual    <NA>     1929     2023     pce_annual            
#> 19 PCE               monthly   SA       Jan 1959 Apr 2024 pce_monthly_sa        
#> 20 PCE               quarterly SA       1947q1   2024q1   pce_quarterly_sa

The package_data_name column contains the internal name of each dataset:

pce_monthly_sa
#> # A tibble: 784 × 3
#>     year month   pce
#>    <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>
#>  1  1959     1  15.2
#>  2  1959     2  15.2
#>  3  1959     3  15.2
#>  4  1959     4  15.2
#>  5  1959     5  15.2
#>  6  1959     6  15.3
#>  7  1959     7  15.3
#>  8  1959     8  15.3
#>  9  1959     9  15.4
#> 10  1959    10  15.4
#> # ℹ 774 more rows

You can also use get_price_index():

get_price_index("PCE", "monthly", "SA")
#> # A tibble: 784 × 3
#>     year month   pce
#>    <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>
#>  1  1959     1  15.2
#>  2  1959     2  15.2
#>  3  1959     3  15.2
#>  4  1959     4  15.2
#>  5  1959     5  15.2
#>  6  1959     6  15.3
#>  7  1959     7  15.3
#>  8  1959     8  15.3
#>  9  1959     9  15.4
#> 10  1959    10  15.4
#> # ℹ 774 more rows

Installation

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("Economic/realtalk")

realtalk's Issues

Correct Series variable names in data documentation

For example, documentation describes the data frames at https://economic.github.io/realtalk/reference/c_cpi_u_extended.html as having a "pce" column

Add quarterly versions of data

We have monthly but need quarterly versions for convenience

create interactive table of available data

create interactive table of available data.

• use ojs and quarto and reactable
  • filters for monthly, annual, and seasonally adjusted (greyed out for annual?)
• switch documentation to altdoc (to allow quarto rendering)

add extended version of chained cpi-u

like Census is now using in income / poverty reports

add income quintile-specific cpi ?

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/research-series/r-cpi-i.htm

not sure how I might do this... maybe a separate series for each quintile?

add base period information

add this somewhere... documentation; in available_price_indexes; elsewhere?

Add seasonally adjusted versions

Of extended Chained CPI and CPIURS

Maybe also add seasonally adjusted versions of those series... (Or maybe not for simplicity)