1. Ring Comparison and Core List of Items
Nada Hamadeh
World Bank
ITAG meeting
Feb. 9-13, 2009

2. Linking the regions Two approaches: 1- Ring Comparison
2- Core List of Items

3. Ring Comparison - Ring Countries (choice affects linking factors)
- Ring List (balanced list for both developed and developing countries)
- Collection Frequency (can affect quality / seasonal considerations)

4. Building the Ring List - Analysis of overlap between regional lists
(Difficulties due to different specs and terminology used)
- Ring list was built as a separate exercise using regional lists as starting point

5. Building the Ring List
- Combined all regional lists ( around 5000 products)
- Meeting with Ring countries to determine which products are available
- Narrow down the list to around 1000 products
- Tried to include regional representative products
- Standardizing item descriptions and introducing quality specifications

6. Considerations for 2011 - Reconsider choice of countries
- Reconsider item list
- Reconsider frequency of price collection
- Cost consideration

7. Core List of Items - Idea raised during Ring data validation
- Small number products (Ex: 100 to 150 products) added to regional lists
- All countries in all regions asked to price this subset (if available)

8. Building a Core List of Items
Two ways to approach this exercise:
- Overlap between regional and Ring lists (tedious exercise involving consideration for differences in terminology and specs)
- Choosing core items from within Ring list using the data collected in 2005
In both cases, need to add lower-quality products

9. Considerations for 2011 - Number of products ( 100 – 150?)
- Additional burden on countries
- Regions with large regional lists of products might consider decreasing the number of products on their lists
- Cost implications