Belgium
Official title
Indice des prix à la consommation (Consumer Price Index).
Scope
The index is compiled monthly and covers average households of
the whole country.
Official base
1988 = 100.
Source of weights
The weights and selected items were derived from a household expenditure
survey conducted during May 1987-May 1988 among 3,315 families of wage
earners, salaried employees, non-active people and own-account workers.
Weights and composition
| Major groups
| Number of items
| Weights
| Approximate number of price quotations
(a)
|
| Food
| 157 | 18.985 | 58900
|
| Tobacco
| 4 | 1.130 | 1200
|
| Clothing and footwear
| 46 | 8.580 | 9600
|
| Housing:
| @ | @ | @
|
| Rent
| 2 | 7.175 | -
|
| Repairs, maintenance and water
| 10 | 6.155 | -
|
| Fuel and light
| 20 | 6.070 | -
|
| Furniture and household appliances
| 54 | 7.850 | 12500
|
| Medical care
| 17 | 4.900 | 2100
|
| Transport and communication
| 33 | 16.495 | 2600
|
| Education and recreation
| 39 | 8.355 | 5900
|
| Other goods and services
| 47 | 14.305 | 7300
|
| Total
| 429 | 100.000 | 102300
|
Note:
(a) Number of quotations collected by field agents, excluding quotations obtained by the central service.
Household consumption expenditure
Consumption expenditure for the purpose of the index includes
almost all goods and services consumed by households. It
also includes the imputed values of home-grown and home-produced
goods and goods received as income in kind.
Method of data collection
Prices of most items are collected by agents at retail outlets
and service establishments in 65 towns and villages throughout
the country. Price are collected each month between the 1st
and the 20th for almost all items.
The prices collected are for cash purchases,
inclusive of all taxes, by consumers who are not given any
special treatment. Price reductions are taken into consideration
from the first day of special offers if they last at least one
day, provided the product is of good quality and is available in
sufficient quantities. Prices of sale items are not taken into
consideration.
Housing
Rent quotations are obtained for public and non-public housing in the
country's 11 provinces. Data on rented public housing are collected
from a number of registered public housing companies. Data on rent for
non-public housing are obtained from a representative sample of 1,521
apartments and houses of various sizes. The sample is revised each
month by replacing two dwellings with two new ones in order to take into
account turnover in the rented housing market.
Specification of varieties
Specifications indicate in particular the choice of units used.
In most cases definitions are rather flexible to allow for
possible changes to be taken into consideration, but sufficiently
strict to ensure continuity of data collection.
Substitution, quality change, etc.
With the approval of the central service, agents are given a certain
leeway to replace an item which has disappeared, in accordance with the
following guidelines. A shop of a given type must be replaced by an
outlet of the same type. A given product should be replaced either by
an equivalent product at the same shop, or by the same product at
another shop.
For certain specific items for which samples have been
derived (cars, non-public rents, third-party insurance for
automotive vehicles and third-party family life insurance), the
new item is chosen from a pre-defined list according to specific
criteria. The new item is introduced in the average index as set
by the other items of the same sub-group. An increase over the
previous month's price is taken into account by assigning the
same progression to the missing item as that of the average index
of other items in its sub-group.
Seasonal items
Seasonal fluctuations in the prices of fresh flowers, fruit and
vegetables are taken into account by changing the monthly composition
of the items in the sub-group, the overall weight of which remains
constant. The indices of certain seasonal items and services are
calculated using the price of the corresponding month of the base
period rather than the average price for the whole base period,
the base prices being the result of the arithmetic average of
prices in the corresponding month of 1987, 1988 and 1989.
Computation
The index is computed according to the Laspeyres formula as a
weighted arithmetic average with fixed base, using weights
corresponding to the base period.
Separate indices are calculated for 65 towns and villages.
The price relative for each item and for each town or village is
computed by dividing the average price by its base period price. The
average price is the simple arithmetic mean of all prices collected.
The 65 towns' or villages' indices are then weighted to arrive at the
national index, the weights used being proportional to the population
of each town or village as of 1 January 1988.
Other information
The general index is also published using the following bases:
1981 = 100; July 1974-June 1975 = 100; and 1971 = 100.
Organisation and publication
Ministère des Affaires économiques, Institut national de
statistique: Bulletin de statistique
(Brussels).
Idem: Communiqué hebdomadaire
.
Ministère des Affaires économiques, Administration du
commerce, Service de l'indice: Le nouvel indice des prix à la
consommation; base 1988 = 100
(Brussels, 1991).