Argentina Food & Beverage Price Index — Methodology
What does this index measure?
This index measures the daily change in online food and beverage prices in Argentina, set to 100 on the first day of the series. A reading of 103 means tracked prices are 3% above the base day. It is a high-frequency, transparent complement to official monthly statistics — daily, with a three-day lag rather than weeks.
Where does the data come from?
Prices are collected daily from publicly listed product pages at major Argentine online retailers (initially Buenos Aires; ~50–100 SKUs across dairy, bakery, produce, meat, pantry, and beverages). Only public prices are used — no personal data, no logged-in sessions. Every data response reports its sources, coverage, and sample size so the number can be independently checked.
How is the index calculated?
The current estimator (v0-simple-avg) is the unweighted mean of price relatives: for each tracked item, today's price is divided by its base-day price, then averaged across items and multiplied by 100. Out-of-stock items are excluded that day; promotional prices are included. The planned upgrade (v1) uses a geometric mean within category and Laspeyres weighting across categories. Every published number records which methodology version produced it.
How often is it updated?
Daily. Each page and API/MCP response carries a machine-readable last_updated timestamp and the methodology version. Historic values are not silently revised; corrections appear in the changelog.
Who maintains it, and what are the limits?
The index is built and maintained by Oscar E. López, Ph.D., whose field is information systems, data administration, and business intelligence — building clean, well-governed data pipelines. The economic index methodology is co-signed by an economist advisor [advisor name/credentials]. Known limits: coverage is a curated basket (not the full CPI basket), it reflects online prices (not in-store), and single-day readings are noisy — interpret trends over weeks, not days.
How should this be cited?
Cite as: López, O. E. (2026). Argentina Food & Beverage Online Price Index. oscar-lopez.com/methodology. A citable methodology note with a DOI is available via [SSRN/Zenodo link]. The dataset is licensed CC BY 4.0; attribution required.