Examples of common measures of inflation include:

Consumer price indices (CPIs) which measures the price of a selection of goods purchased by a "typical consumer."

Cost-of-living indices (COLI) which often adjust fixed incomes and contractual incomes based on measures of goods and services price changes.

Producer price indices (PPIs) which measure the price received by a producer. This differs from the CPI in that price subsidization, profits, and taxes may cause the amount received by the producer to differ from what the consumer paid. There is also typically a delay between an increase in the PPI and any resulting increase in the CPI. Producer price inflation measures the pressure being put on producers by the costs of their raw materials. This could be "passed on" as consumer inflation, or it could be absorbed by profits, or offset by increasing productivity.

Wholesale price indices, which measure the change in price of a selection of goods at wholesale, prior to retail mark ups and sales taxes. These are very similar to the Producer Price Indices.

Commodity price indices, which measure the change in price of a selection of commodities. In the present commodity price indices are weighted by the relative importance of the components to the "all in" cost of an employee.

GDP Deflator measures price increases in all assets rather than some particular subset. The term "deflator" in this case means the percentage to reduce current prices to get the equivalent price in a previous period. The US Commerce Department publishes a deflator series for the U.S. economy.

Capital goods price Index, although so far no attempt at building such an index has been tried, several economists have recently pointed the necessity to measure separately capital goods inflation (inflation in the price of stocks, real estate, and other assets). Indeed a given increase in the supply of money can lead to a rise in inflation (consumption goods inflation) and or to a rise in capital goods price inflation. The growth in money supply has remained fairly constant through since the 1970's however consumption goods price inflation has been reduced because most of the inflation has happened in the capital goods prices.

Regional Inflation The Bureau of Labor Statistics breaks down CPI-U calculations down to different regions of the US.

Historical Inflation Before collecting consistent econometric data became standard for governments, and for the purpose of comparing absolute, rather than relative standards of living, various economists have calculated imputed inflation figures. Most inflation data before the early 20th century is imputed based on the known costs of goods, rather than compiled at the time. It is also used to adjust for the differences in real standard of living for the presence of technology. This is equivalent to not adjusting the composition of baskets over time.