ITAG meeting February 2009 Overlapping lists Overlapping lists in Eurostat comparisons

ITAG meeting February 2009Overlapping lists Division in country groups North – 12 countries Central – 11 countries South – 10 countries Western-Balkan – 4 countries – annex to Central group Group leaders are responsible for drafting product lists for their groups on the basis of information on availability and representativity collected in a pre-survey

ITAG meeting February 2009Overlapping lists Creating overlap Use of Structured Product Descriptions (SPD) Three draft group lists are merged into one European list Product descriptions are further harmonised and groups join each other’s items to obtain sufficient overlap

ITAG meeting February 2009Overlapping lists Example

ITAG meeting February 2009Overlapping lists Calculations of PPPs Done in one (EKS*) calculation including all countries

ITAG meeting February 2009Overlapping lists Item List Management Tool Web application to manage the establishment of item lists Collaboration and communication tool: Eurostat, group leaders and countries exchange information and opinions inside the tool -> full transparency Enforces the use of SPDs

ITAG meeting February 2009Overlapping lists Ring comparison major issues Ring pricing separated from regional pricing Difficulty in determining ring countries -> needs to be representative of the regions Hence: in 2011, ideally: Ring products to be integrated in regional lists All countries price (some) ring products

ITAG meeting February 2009Overlapping lists 2 possible scenarios for 2011 round 1.Start making global list on the basis of previous regional lists, then add regional products in each region 2.Start making new draft regional lists, then merge them to create overlap (similar to Eurostat process) Use of SPDs for regional lists is imperative

ITAG meeting February 2009Overlapping lists Challenges in either scenario Global list (ca. 500 items?) needs to be equi-representative for all regions -> regions need to propose products and negotiate this list. Not all global items need to be on all regional lists. Regional lists (including global items) need to be representative for the regions.

ITAG meeting February 2009Overlapping lists Calculation of linking factors Global PPP calculation not possible as long as regions use different calculation methods, because of fixity Inter-regional linking factors to be calculated from all countries’ prices for the global list items