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초록

There is broad consensus that the official consumer price index, which uses conventional expenditure weights, does not accurately reflect the inflation experienced by consumers when purchasing food. Based on this premise, we developed a food price index that reflects the actual inflation perceived by food shoppers. This index was constructed by incorporating purchase frequency weights and the concept of loss aversion into the Laspeyres price index. Perceived food inflation was more volatile than official inflation, even when considering only the heterogeneity of item-specific weights. The empirical analysis revealed significant heterogeneity between purchase-frequency weights and expenditure weights, with substantial price fluctuations observed, particularly for frequently purchased essential food items. The divergence between the two indices varied across price cycles, with the gap tending to widen significantly during periods of rising prices. The analysis further indicated that low-income groups and older adults were particularly sensitive to fluctuations in perceived food prices. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag-Error Correction Model analysis estimated that perceived food price inflation was approximately 2.12 times more sensitive to official price inflation, with an average adjustment period following deviations from equilibrium estimated at approximately three months. These findings highlight the need to construct a perceived food price index to supplement the official price index, thereby enhancing the accuracy and reliability of policy responses by policymakers and price authorities.

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