1. Contact |
1.1 Contact organisation |
Italian National Institute of Statistics |
1.2 Contact organisation unit |
Consumer Prices Unit |
1.3 Contact name |
1.4 Contact person function |
1.5 Contact mail address |
Via C. Balbo, 16 |
1.6 Contact email address |
1.7 Contact phone number |
1.8 Contact fax number |
2. Metadata update |
2.1 Metadata last certified |
18/03/2015 |
2.2 Metadata last posted |
18/03/2015 |
2.3 Metadata last update |
18/03/2015 |
3. Statistical presentation |
3.1 Data description |
Harmonised indices of consumer prices (HICPs) give comparable measures of inflation for the countries and country groups they are produced. They are economic indicators that measure the change over time of the prices of consumer goods and services acquired by households. In other words they are a set of consumer price indices (CPIs) calculated according to a harmonised approach and a single set of definitions. |
3.2 Classification system |
COICOP/HICP (Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose adapted to the needs of Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices). |
3.3 Coverage - sector |
HICP covers the whole household sector, more precisely the goods and services that are acquired by households. |
3.4 Statistical concepts and definitions |
The published data are as:
Annual data:
|
3.5 Statistical unit |
Each published index or rate of change refers to the 'final monetary consumption expenditure' of the whole household sector of the country. |
3.6 Statistical population |
The target statistical universe is the 'household final monetary consumption expenditure' (HFMCE) within the country. The household sector to which the definition refers includes all individuals or groups of individuals irrespective of, in particular, the type of area in which they live, their position in the income distribution and their nationality or residence status. These definitions follow the national accounts concepts in the European system of national and regional accounts (ESA). |
3.7 Reference area |
Italy (San Marino and the Vatican State are not covered). In 2015, prices are collected from 80 municipalities (19 regional chief towns and 61 provincial chief towns) - which participate in the indices calculation of all representative items included in the basket - and from other 12 municipalities participating in the survey for a subset of products which includes local tariffs and some local services. Price collection is not carried out in villages or rural areas. On the whole, in terms of resident population, the rate of coverage is equal to 83.5%. Concerning the basket subset including local tariffs and some local services, with the participation of the other 12 municipalities, the rate of coverage, measured in terms of resident populatione, rises to 91.9%. |
3.8 Coverage - Time |
HICP has been published since 1997. |
3.9 Base period |
HICP is produced and published with reference period 2005=100 starting from January 2001. A set of monthly HICP series for the period 2002-2005 using 2001 as reference year and a set of monthly HICP series for the period 1997-2001, using 1996 as reference year, are also available at request. |
4. Unit of measure |
Following units are used:
|
5. Reference Period |
Month. |
6. Institutional Mandate |
6.1 Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements |
Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices (HICPs) are harmonised inflation figures required under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 of 23 October 1995 (OJ L 257/1) sets the legal basis for establishing a harmonised methodology for the compilation of the HICP. Under this Regulation, the Commission has brought forward detailed Regulations establishing the specific rules governing the production of harmonised index. All relevant regulations and methodological details can be found in the HICP section on Eurostat's website under Methodology => Legislation.
The Italian Laws No 222/1927 and No 621/1975 specify the responsibilities and tasks of the agencies that contribute to the production of the Consumer price indices, i.e. Istat and Municipal Offices of Statistics (MOS). |
6.2 Institutional Mandate - data sharing |
The Legislative Decree No 322 of 6 September 1989contains provisions on data sharing and coordination within SISTAN: according to the article No 6 Statistical Offices, under the coordination of Istat, shall cooperate with other authorities for the execution of the surveys provided for in the National Statistical Programme. Directives issued by COMSTAT have further strengthened these provisions. In addition, Istat has developed statistical information systems utilized throughout SISTAN for sharing data. Istat also cooperates closely with agencies that do not belong to SISTAN through specific data sharing protocols and agreements. According to the Regulation (EC) No 223/2009.and to the DPR No 166 of 7 September 2010, Istat is part of the European Statistical System and coordinates and shares data with the Commission (Eurostat) and the others national statistical institutes and other national authorities responsible in each Member State for the development, production and dissemination of European Statistics. |
7. Confidentiality |
7.1 Confidentiality - policy |
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society. |
7.2 Confidentiality - data treatment |
In order to make statistical confidentiality and protection of personal data effective, Istat is currently taking appropriate organisational, logistical, methodological and statistical measures in accordance with internationally established standards. |
8. Release policy |
8.1 Release calendar |
The release calendar is publically available and published at the end of the year for the full following year. |
8.2 Release calendar access |
Istat website: Release calendar 2015. |
8.3 Release policy - user access |
In line with the Legislative Decree No 322/1989 (Article 15, paragraph 1[g] – requirement to publish and disseminate data) and the Italian Statistics Code of Practice (issued by the Comstat - Policy-making and Co-ordinating Committee for Statistical information - under Directive no. 10/2010 in full accordance with the European Statistics Code of Practice), Istat disseminates statistics, mainly on Istat’s website, (see item 10 - ‘Dissemination format’) respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. |
9. Frequency of dissemination |
Harmonised consumer price indices are produced monthly. |
10. Accessibility and clarity |
10.1 Dissemination format - News release |
Press releases on-line. |
10.2 Dissemination format - Publications |
The HICPs for the 12 COICOP Divisions and the total are published in time series tables attached to Press release. |
10.3 Dissemination format - online database |
Italian HICP indices, with a level of detail of the COICOP-HICP product classes and by special aggregates and Italian HICP-CT indices, with a level of detail of COICOP divisions, are published in I.Stat, the warehouse of statistics produced by Istat, inside the theme Prices. |
10.4 Dissemination format - microdata access |
None. |
10.5 Dissemination format - other |
See also Istat’s CPIs section website. |
10.6 Documentation on methodology |
Methodological notes on the Italian HICP and national CPIs are published in:
|
10.7 Quality management - documentation |
See Eurostat's Compliance Monitoring Report of 2007 and 2014. |
11. Quality management |
11.1 Quality assurance |
Statistical practice used to compile HICP is compliant with HICP methodological requirements and good practices in the field of CPIs Data production process and data quality are regularly carried out both by Istat and Municipal Offices of Statistics (MOS) that are officially in charge of data collection. At first stage, data quality are monitored by MOS. At a second stage, Istat carries out a complete check on the entire data-set collected both by MOS and at central level (597,500 prices are monthly collected). Istat regularly provides data collectors with training interventions geared towards acquiring appropriate skills for carrying out collection activity. |
11.2 Quality management - assessment |
The quality of the HICP can be assessed high. Its concepts and methodology has been developed according harmonised standards. HICP accuracy is considerably improved following changes introduced in the data collection and data editing processes. The main users consider HICP sufficiently accurate for their purposes. It is disseminated following a pre-announced timetable. |
12. Relevance |
12.1 Relevance - User Needs |
The HICP is mainly used for measuring price trends, economic forecasting and analysis, accounting purpose and deflating series and inflation targeting. |
12.2 Relevance - User Satisfaction |
No information. |
12.3 Completeness |
All COICOP indices at 4-digit level are produced and disseminated. |
13. Accuracy |
13.1 Accuracy - overall |
The accuracy of HICP can be assessed high. The accuracy of data source is monitored by assessing the methodological soundness of price and weight sources and the adherence to the harmonised methodology. Price collection assure good coverage and timeliness. Outlets, where price are collected, are selected to represent the Italian trade and services network. All the private household in the economic territory are covered. |
13.2 Sampling error |
The HICP sampling error is not quantified cause a non-probability sampling is used. Sampling errors are reduced using a large amount of consumer prices; furthermore, in order to minimize the variance of the all-items index, a representative number of prices for each item category is collected. |
13.3 Non-sampling error |
The HICP non-sampling errors are not quantified. They are considerably reduced in the last years with the in-depth reengineering of the whole Consumer Price survey IT environment. The new IT architecture is based on:
|
14. Timeliness and punctuality |
14.1 Timeliness |
The Flash estimate of Italian HICP is usually published on the last working day of the reference month. |
14.2 Punctuality |
The Italian HICP has always been published on the pre-announced release dates (no deviation from the annuonced date occurred in any of the months). |
15. Coherence and comparability |
15.1 Comparability - geographical |
There are no problems of comparability at geographical level. The Italian HICP is calculated at national level only. Its comparability with those of the other Member States is guaranteed by the respect of EU Regulations. |
15.2 Comparability - over time |
Data on Italian HICP are available with reference period 2005=100 starting from January 2001. With reference base year 1996=100, data are available since 1996. |
15.3 Coherence - cross domain |
ISTAT produces three different Consumer price indices, based on the same survey:
Differences between the HICP and the national CPIs:
|
15.4 Coherence - internal |
HICP is internally coherent. Higher level aggregations are derived from detailed indices according to well-defined procedures. |
16. Cost and Burden |
The largest components of cost for HICP/CPIs production supported by ISTAT are the staff cost and the grant provided to all municipalities which take part in consumer price survey (the latter is aimed at improving the survey quality and therefore it should be used by municipalities to upgrade the computer equipment and to strengthen the survey organization; with regards to survey organization at local level, the ISTAT grant can be used by municipalities only for financing partially the recourse to external staff or a surplus of work performed by the internal staff outside of the ordinary work through overtime pay). The ISTAT funding provided to municipalities is established according to the municipal sampling plan (products included in the basket and number of survey units) and the number of collected price quotations In 2014,
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17. Data revision |
17.1 Data revision - policy |
HICP series, including back data, are revisable under the terms set in Commission Regulation (EC) No 1921/2001 of 28 September 2001. The published HICP data may be revised for mistakes, new or improved information, and changes in the system of harmonised rules. |
17.2 Data revision - practice |
The first data dissemination concerns provisional data for the latest month. These are confirmed or revised to the final figures within the second week of the following month. |
18. Statistical processing |
18.1 Source data |
Prices are monthly collected through two distinct surveys carried out at central and territorial level:
No of price observations per month: 597,500 Sample size The selection of outlets is based on a non-probabilistic sampling: outlets with the highest sales revenues for different groups of products are sampled by Municipal Offices of Statistics (MOS) which carry out the data collection at local level according to methods and standards established by ISTAT. The outlet selection is carried out directly by MOS, according to rules established by ISTAT and on the basis of information gathered from Census, business plans, business registers and other available sources. The extent of the outlet sample varies town by town taking into account:
The list of outlets is updated once a year, usually in December.
Number of representative items at the lowest classification level All-items 623 05 Furnishings, household equipment and routine maintenance of the house: 79 Many representative items shown singly cover large areas and use sub samples (i.e. mobile phone services are one item but use a sample of about one hundred tariff plans). In the first stage, item selection is carried out by Istat using several sources: National Accounts and Household Budget Survey data; several outside sources and information from MOSs. In the second stage, the product-offers selection is made by price collectors in the field, in accordance with the ''the most sold'' principle. Price collection covers both tightly and loosely specified products. Loose specifications are used if the prices within a product group are considered sufficiently homogenous. The product specification for representative items is defined for one year. |
18.2 Frequency of data collection |
Price collection takes place once a month for the majority of products during the first fifteen working days of the reference month. |
18.3 Data collection |
Price collection on the territory is carried out using PC Tablets with UMTS cards, which are distributed to all data collectors of MOSs involved in the survey. Data collectors load data directly, every day just after collected, into the centralized database. They perform checks and editing on micro data directly on the database, with no confusing data redundancy. A continuous, on-line, real-time system for monitoring price collection activities and the quality of the data collected has been implemented. |
18.4 Data validation |
Data validation is carried out in two stages. First, data are validated at territorial level by MOSs. Second, Istat carries out validation data analyzing different indicators available such as temporary non-collection rate, replacement item rate, temporary price reduction rate and price change rate for outlier or error detection. |
18.5 Data compilation |
Weights The weighting coefficients for the main aggregates are determined on the basis of the values of household final monetary consumption expenditure as derived from National Accounts. Additional information used to define weights for the elementary headings has derived from the Household Budget Survey, from other Istat survey (foreign trade, industrial production, tourist flow and other surveys) and from external sources. There are 623 item weights at national level. The weights are updated every year. The reference period for current weights is the year 2013, price-updated to December 2014. Computation of the lowest-level indices Geometric means are used for computing the elementary price indices in each municipality. Treatment of missing items and replacements
Treatment of price reductions Treatment of seasonal items |
18.6 Adjustment |
Adjustment for quality differences |
19. Comment |
None. |