Maths in economics, finance and society · Accessible · Dissertation

How inflation is measured: a maths EPQ idea

Why it works as an EPQ

Index numbers and weighted averages, with your own basket to compare against the official one.

Scope and difficulty

Accessible. Accessible. One index, one personal basket, one year.

The maths

Builds on these A Level topics: Sampling and data · Sequences and series.

You would learn:

• Index numbers
• Weighted averages
• Laspeyres and other index formulas

Learning maths beyond the course is expected in a maths EPQ, but you must understand and explain everything you use.

One possible plan

1. Explain how a price index is built and weighted.
2. Build a student basket from a small anonymous survey.
3. Price it over time from public data.
4. Compare with the official rate and judge the difference.

Pitfalls

• A survey sample too small or biased.
• Comparing different time periods.

Where to start reading

• Office for National Statistics consumer price inflation methods
• Search for: Laspeyres index weights

Prefer books, lecture notes, journal articles and official data to a single website, and record every source as you read (how to reference).

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All maths in economics, finance and society ideas · all 93 ideas

Your EPQ must be your own work. These pages coach: ideas, structure, checklists and planning. Submitting text, proofs, code or analysis written by someone else or by an AI tool as your own is malpractice. How to use help and AI honestly.