PERSONAL SPENDING ON TRANSPORTATION

Personal Consumption Expenditures on Transportation (quarterly data, seasonally adjusted)

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Personal Consumption Expenditures on Transportation (quarterly data, seasonally adjusted)

Personal expenditures on transportation are a measure of consumer demand for transportation services. Since expenditures are the product of quantity and price, these expenditures are also influenced by changes in the prices of transportation-related goods and services. To show the “real” changes in demand for transportation services over time, the expenditures are also presented in chained 1996 dollars. The traditional constant dollar measure is different from the chained dollar measure in that it gets rid of the effects of short-term price shocks, in addition to general inflation effects. Therefore, expenditures measured in chained 1996 dollars reflect changes in quantities. For items with volatile prices, such as gasoline, changes in chained dollar expenditure over time can be very different from changes in current dollar expenditures.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis; National Income and Product Accounts data, Tables 2.2 and 2.3; Feb. 28, 2002; available at: http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/dn/nipaweb/AllTables.asp?Selected=N#S2; based on Survey of Current Business.