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Consumer Price Diversity Index

 A measure of manufacturers' economic health
 
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Have you noticed that every item in the grocery store is approximately the same price now? Formerly cheap items have gotten more expensive. Formerly expensive items have gotten smaller, but the price per item remains unchanged. There are still a few anomalies with extremely high or low prices, but these are fewer than before. In general, the curve has "flattened" and I think this flatness / lack of "price diversity" is a measure of the economic health of a nation.

In a healthy economic time, there should be a large variety of item prices in the supermarket; in a recession the variance should decrease. A simple feed of all the single-item prices in regional supermarkets into a federal database would allow easy computation of this statistic.

Thank you.

—phundug, Oct 15 2012

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       // Have you noticed that every item in the grocery store is approximately the same price now?   

       No.
—tatterdemalion, Oct 15 2012
   

       //No// Seconded
—DIYMatt, Oct 15 2012
   

       This could be a result of the bad climate rather than the bad economic climate. This year has seen very low yields, primarily in grain but fruit and veg is no exception. "The run of unpredictable weather this season has left farmers and growers with bumper crops of "ugly" fruit and vegetables with reported increases in blemishes and scarring"   

       Perhaps we should just be offered more cheap ugly food, which in a time of austerity might not be a bad thing.   

       Thankfully pumpkins are doing fine here probably because of the excess of rain we had.   

       (And no I am not trying or interested in trying to extrapolate climate change from one years data)
—PainOCommonSense, Oct 15 2012
   

       Certain items come from industries so mature that only patentable innovations can significantly affect the price.
—Voice, Oct 16 2012
   


 

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