Introduction of the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) in Switzerland

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Introduction of the Harmonised Index of Consumer
Prices (HICP) in Switzerland

• Presented by Corinne Becker Vermeulen8-9 May
  2008, UNECE Joint CPI meeting

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Contents

• 1. General conditions for introducing an HICP in
  Switzerland
• 2. Scope for adaptations
• 3. Impact on production process
• 4. Results
• 5. Outlook

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1. General conditions

• Bilateral Agreement on Statistics between the EU
  and Switzerland introduction of HICP legislation
  as of 2008
• First publication of Swiss results 10 years after
  the HICP introduction in Europe
• Aim of the indicator international comparison of
  price evolution, aggregation of different country
  groups

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2. Scope for adaptation

• Main criterion comparability
• Existing methods of the Swiss CPI are comparable
  in many fields, e.g. calculation, annual
  weighting, classification, definition of prices
• Main adaptations
• Coverage and weighting
• Frequency of price collection
• Specific adaptation of certain indicators (air
  tariffs, package holidays, financial services,
  social protection)

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2. Scope for adaptation

• Differences in concept entail different weighting
• Sources for HICP weighting
• HBS, National Accounts, Health Statistics
• Main differences of weights
• CPI HICP Housing (OOH included in CPI),
  Social protection (collective households
  included in HICP)
• HICP CH EU27 Health, Housing, Food

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2. Scope for adaptation
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2. Scope for adaptation

• Different treatment of services (air tariffs,
  package holidays) parallel indicators for HICP
  and CPI
• Additional indices developed for financial
  services and social protection
• Price collection period extended

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3. Impact on production process

• Price collection periodicity adapted to HICP
  regulation
• Up to 2007 only prices of fresh food and fuels
  collected monthly
• As from 2008 most positions collected monthly
• Prices collected annually increase from 360000
  to 600000
• Most prices enter both indicators

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3. Impact on production process

• Strategy for introduction of monthly price
  collection
• Early preparation of IT application, early
  recruiting
• Strict separation of price collection from
  calculation
• Inclusion / exclusion of items defined in
  calculation module
• Information of the change in frequency public,
  enterprises
• The impact of the new frequency will be analyzed

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4. Results

• Base year 2005, calculation of results 2005 to
  2007 according to HICP methodology as far as
  possible
• Introduction as of 2008, publication primarily
  by Eurostat
• Difficulty communication of differences CPI
  HICP differences on all aggregated levels,
  mainly in the headings for Housing and energy,
  Restaurants and hotels and Miscellaneous
  goods and services
• Between 2006 and 2008, differences in annual
  and month- ly rates never exceeded 0.2 and
  were not systematic

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4. Results
Price evolution in Switzerland is still rather
low in European
comparison
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5. Outlook

• Annual re-weighting
• Follow up of price collection frequency
• HICP needs will influence the CPI reforms