Superlative index numbers: not all of them are super

This paper shows that just because superlative index numbers approximate each other to the second order does not necessarily imply that they are numerically similar. In fact, the spread between the largest and smallest superlative indexes sometimes even exceeds that between Paasche and Laspeyres indexes. This result has significant implications for the index number literature. It shows that the economic approach does not by itself solve the index number problem, since it does not tell us which superlative index should be used. It may be necessary to combine the economic and axiomatic approaches to arrive at an answer. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.