Although I basically agree with the analyses, just I mentioned, I conjecture that a more fundamental reason lies in the fact that price measurement itself has become hard in recent years. Of course, in theory, the price index is supposed to trace quality-adjusted prices over time.
In practice, however, value added and attendant risk are hard to be identified, as the economy becomes more information-driven, service-oriented, and network-intensive. 9 A case in point is financial services consumers purchase from financial institutions. Financial services are about risk assessment. As our experience of the financial crisis shows, however, such risk assessment turned out to be inadequate.