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How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

economist.com

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Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#21

Post by [deleted] »

appleiigs wrote: post #10
unimployed wrote: post #7

>The uncertainty principle If it happens on a sufficiently large scale, the practice of tweaking quality in lieu of price could play havoc with essential economic data. Statistical agencies do their best to account for changing product quality, but if adjustments are unexpectedly common or subtle then muted inflation figures could easily be concealing a more turbulent economic picture. Central banks watching for big…

> rarely acknowledged by economists and statisticians inside the field. This is complete false. If you ever took an Econ 101 course, you'd know the fallibility of economic stats are covered at length.

[deleted]

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#22

Post by ggm »

unimployed wrote: post #7

>The uncertainty principle If it happens on a sufficiently large scale, the practice of tweaking quality in lieu of price could play havoc with essential economic data. Statistical agencies do their best to account for changing product quality, but if adjustments are unexpectedly common or subtle then muted inflation figures could easily be concealing a more turbulent economic picture. Central banks watching for big…

Viewed from one bottom, the quality of toilet paper is of intense interest. Viewed across many bottoms it becomes less about how peachy soft the Charmian is and more about the effect in the balance of payments importing bumwad instead of making your own from local splinters in a pulp mill employing people.

CPI has to bridge both cheeks: it has to reflect what one person can relate to and what entire nations actually do.

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#23

Post by thesagan »

unimployed wrote: post #14
appleiigs wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rarely acknowledged by economists and statisticians inside the field. This is complete false. If you ever took an Econ 101 course, you'd know the fallibility of economic stats are covered at length.

Pretty sure you are being sarcastic or you are not all that experienced. Talk at length with most economic professionals on /r/economics and you will find the repeatedly stated and unstated views that “the CPI is the most studied economic measurement in the world” and “you are welcome to perform your own study covering the inadequacies of the CPI.” I paraphrased slightly but from memory those quotes are highly accura…

I've seen this pattern in academic settings myself.

There's simply a lot of tunnel vision. Although, as a parent comment pointed out (a bit rudely) there's acknowledgement of various shortcomings of measures such as CPI, there's also a tendency to assume these models are accurate in policy-setting institutions.

I'd say they're maybe as accurate as predicting weather in the Great Lakes Region.

Also: r/economics should not be representative of economists, as a group. (Although they do parrot a lot of bank and government economist views.) Most posters there strike me as undergrads, who are mostly clueless to the fuzzy subtleties of the study (and life in general.)

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#24

Post by unimployed »

ekianjo wrote: post #19
dane-pgp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also like to see a law passed that requires each product to mention on its packaging if its ingredients (even just their relative proportions) have changed. This would apply to things like foods/drinks and also cleaning products. Of course companies would protest, claiming that their recipes are trade secrets, but we already require that products list their ingredients, and we protect trademarks for products, whi…

> I'd also like to see a law passed that requires each product to mention on its packaging if its ingredients (even just their relative proportions) have changed. This would apply to things like foods/drinks and also cleaning products. Ridiculous proposition. Formulations change pretty much constantly for various reasons (ingredients become more expensive, or you change suppliers, or you decide to adjust something to…

Ok, but what is your better suggestion to solve the problem of quality or content creep that affects consumers and economic data? Perhaps there is a good way to have consumers be informed, or perhaps there isn’t. But at the very least, accurate data for economic statistics should be available since that same kind of data is available at batch levels for safety and compliance purposes.

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#25

Post by dsparkman »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #11
gnicholas wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now the law says that the packaging must clearly point out if the quantity inside has changed. We need this law in the US. I’m not one to push for new regulations, but I have seen this happen time and again with big companies (Nabisco, General Mills) that shrink their boxes and count on the customer not to notice.

On the other hand a lot of candy gets bigger and bigger. I am pretty sure the candy bars and ice cream scoops I got when I was a kid were half of the current size. Or even less.

I love to watch the shrinkage of ice cream. Over the past 10 years, the standard packaging of ice cream has gone from 1/2 gallon (1.9 L) to where they are currently at 1.4 L, with prices staying relatively the same.

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#26

Post by gnicholas »

dsparkman wrote: post #25
Ididntdothis wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand a lot of candy gets bigger and bigger. I am pretty sure the candy bars and ice cream scoops I got when I was a kid were half of the current size. Or even less.

I love to watch the shrinkage of ice cream. Over the past 10 years, the standard packaging of ice cream has gone from 1/2 gallon (1.9 L) to where they are currently at 1.4 L, with prices staying relatively the same.

There’s also the trend toward “whipped” ice cream which has fewer calories and lower COGS because it is mixed with air.

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#29

Post by Spooky23 »

gnicholas wrote: post #5
forinti wrote: post #4

This is a process Brazilians know well. Chocolate bars used to have 200g. Some now have less than 100g. Toilet paper rolls used to have 50m; most now have 30m and some have only 10m. This sort of thing started happening in the 1980s, because the government had frozen prices (that always works well). It became such a problem that now the law says that the packaging must clearly point out if the quantity inside has cha…

> now the law says that the packaging must clearly point out if the quantity inside has changed. We need this law in the US. I’m not one to push for new regulations, but I have seen this happen time and again with big companies (Nabisco, General Mills) that shrink their boxes and count on the customer not to notice.

One of the big tuna vendors would shrink rat like 1/16 of an ounce from tuna cans. Just raise the price, nobody is fooled.

Re: How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models

#30

Post by VHRanger »

thesagan wrote: post #23
unimployed wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure you are being sarcastic or you are not all that experienced. Talk at length with most economic professionals on /r/economics and you will find the repeatedly stated and unstated views that “the CPI is the most studied economic measurement in the world” and “you are welcome to perform your own study covering the inadequacies of the CPI.” I paraphrased slightly but from memory those quotes are highly accura…

I've seen this pattern in academic settings myself. There's simply a lot of tunnel vision. Although, as a parent comment pointed out (a bit rudely) there's acknowledgement of various shortcomings of measures such as CPI, there's also a tendency to assume these models are accurate in policy-setting institutions. I'd say they're maybe as accurate as predicting weather in the Great Lakes Region. Also: r/economics should…

Mod of r/economics here.

If you want informed people on economics on reddit, go to r/badeconomics which is the more tightly knit hangout for professional economists and grad students.

Otherwise, go to the economics cluster on twitter. r/economics is like r/news with an econ twist. It's too large to effectively moderate.

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