What to do when the cupboard is bare?

You can't argue with a tin of ravioli and cheese, I always say. Not just because you won't get a response, but because your original dinner may be in the cat, and the cupboard may otherwise be bare upon returning late from the office.

Another option might be a can of beans, and you couldn't argue with that either, especially not its inclusion in an inflation basket, which should reflect the average household budget. They sell enough of them in the supermarket.

Such was my cunning plan to avoid mentioning the 'I-word' up front, since we're all pretty much fed up with it.

Measuring inflation in the UAE is a slightly different issue, however, from moaning about it. And here things are happening.

In essence, the Central Bank's unofficial consumer price series (in single digits and falling) does not altogether represent the common view. Besides the IMF's and private sector's efforts to shed light on the matter, public bodies have entered the fray.

In the past year Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry has been preparing a consumer price index for Dubai, although seemingly now delayed.

Then those plucky types at Standard Chartered Bank issued a release conforming with the consensus idea of inflation (in double digits and rising), nominating a figure of 13.8 per cent for 2006.

To cap it all, in August the UAE federal government announced it was launching a detailed household survey to prepare an accurate, official CPI, a lengthy process which will take around a year to complete.

Like buses in some places, you wait ages, then three come along at once. That analogy can be extended (bear with me). For, whatever the vehicle for understanding that does appear, it has to make sense, not, for instance, like the oversized, bendy conveyances cluttering the streets of London.

We're talking fitness for purpose. Since the existing consumer price series may actually be correct in its own terms, its successor has to demonstrate superior utility. It should be not only accurate but relevant.

Workers may not be able to claim pay increases to match costs. In the absence of trade unions, supply and demand rule - but that's true across much of the West too in this era.

Even so, it's the cost of living which people (and businesses) are interested in, not an academic exercise which may arbitrarily strip out volatile elements and therefore bear scant relation to reality.

Most people have a decent idea of their own bills, of course, but an authoritative measure, supplemented by segmented data for different groups in society (especially pertinent in this country), would be something you could hang your hat on.

In planning for the future, the government too would benefit from the collation of market research and its findings.

Assembled insights on the UAE's currently published inflation series give the impression that, whereas there may be nothing wrong with the calculation itself, the data used may suffer a number of drawbacks.

Factors mentioned include whether (i) the household surveys are outdated, since they originated nearly ten years ago, (ii) the list of categories is truncated, (iii) there may be a base-year distortion, (iv) the basket represents that of the minority national population, who are subsidised in key goods and services, rather than the expatriate majority, (v) imported items may not be adequately reflected, (vi) the substantial weight for housing does not reflect cash expense but instead the proxy of employer allowances, and (vii) the housing samples may actually be too small.

Phew! If much or all of that really applies, it's no wonder the authorities are working on something better. Of course, they'll also have to decide if they're opting for the Laspeyres index or the Paasche, and an arithmetic mean or a geometric.

But that's where I feel it must be time to go with gut feeling, by which I literally mean inspecting the food cupboard again. Not only can you not argue much with algebra, but, like an irrelevant inflation measure, you can't live by it either.