Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Prices

I've been wondering a lot lately about how airfare and gas prices relate to the increase in other goods over time. My hypothesis was that gas prices are increasing far faster than other goods, and airline ticket prices are increasing much, much slower. The federal government is nice enough to have a whole bunch of websites where you can get this sort of information. With a bit of number crunching and Excel formatting, I created the chart below.

This data came from the following sources:

1. US Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics - http://www.bls.gov/data/
2. US Department of Transportation - Research and Innovative Technology Administration - http://www.rita.dot.gov/
3. US Department of Energy - Energy Information Administration - http://www.eia.doe.gov/

I would be more than happy to share the raw data with anyone who wants it.



Click on the image above to enlarge the chart.

5 comments:

Jeff Goldstein said...

While fascinating to be sure, I would be more interested in seeing the percentage of each price that comes from oil/gas over time, normalized of course. Perhaps I will find that data and submit it myself.

Bela Naomi said...

wow. thanks for the broccoli data. I was wondering about that.


...actually, it is quite interesting that airfare hasn't changed. It seems to have changed recently, but maybe that's my imagination.

mipinn said...

I think, that's why the airlines are in such big trouble. They're caught between keeping airfares affordable and paying for jet fuel. If they were to increase airfares enough to compensate for the price of oil, no one would be able to afford to fly.

Bela Naomi said...

although, currently people are flying MORE in order to drive Less. Perhaps it would balance back out if airfare was higher (not that I am promoting raising the cost of airfare)

eoc said...

oh if only we could fuel our travel with broccoli