1. If each household in a nation were to track a consumer price index that averaged the prices of items consumed solely by that household, why would you anticipate that the annual rate of change of every household's average of prices likely would differ?
2. Russian government economists follow the U.S. example of publishing a measure of "core inflation" in which food and energy prices are stripped from the consumer price index before computing annual inflation rates. Why do you think that Russian "core inflation" is lower than the annual rate of change in the Russian CPI that includes food prices?