对消费者信心指数的质疑

Suspicion of Consumer Confidence Index

因为要质疑用简单平均法测算的消费者信心指数算法的合理性,所以研究消费者信心指数的二级构成指数间的相互关系,研究发现,各二级指数间相互影响,二级指数间有信息重复。这会导致简单平均算法计算的信心指数放大了某些因素的影响,会产生系统性偏差,导致信心指数的失真。因此,用因子分析方法对消费者信心指数进行修正,研究发现修正后的信心指数与宏观经济变量的相关程度更高。

This paper questioned the calculation method of the Consumer Confidence Index（CCI）. Based on the study of composition of CCI,the author found sub-indexes of CCI have mutual influence and each of them may contain duplicate information. Thus, the calculation method of CCI is an improper one, which will magnified the impact of certain factors. So, there will be systematic bias resulting in distortion. At the same time , this paper presents a new method to amend the CCI by means of factor analysis, and the author found the amended CCI has a higher degree of correlation with macroeconomic variables than original CCI does.