Lithuania
Official title
Consumer Price Index.
Scope
The index is computed and published monthly and covers all
private resident households in Lithuania.
Official base
For computation: May 1992 = 100.
Weights base period: 1995.
Price base period: Dec. 1996.
For publication:
Dec. 1990 = 100 (general and food index only);
May 1992 = 100 (general index and 12 main groups);
Dec. 1996 = 100.
Sources of weights
Weights were derived from the 1995 household budget survey. The
survey was representative for all private households in Lithuania.
It covered approximately 8,000 (i.e. average 670 per month)
randomly selected households who stayed in the sample for one
month. The weights were not adjusted by the price changes
between the reference period of the weights (1995) and the price
base period (Dec. 1996).
Information from Domestic Trade Statistics was used for
adjusting the weights of alcoholic beverages and tobacco.
Industry statistics data were used for estimation of the weights
of some goods.
Weights and composition
| Major groups
| Number of items
| Weights
| Approx. No of price quotations
|
| Food and non-alcoholic beverages
| 131 | 47.50 | 14,000
|
| Alcoholic beverages and tobacco
| 11 | 5.66 | 1,500
|
| Clothing and footwear
| 89 | 9.51 | 6,100
|
| Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuel
| 24 | 15.58 | 1,000
|
| Furnishing, household equipment, and routine maintenance of the house
| 49 | 2.77 | 3,200
|
| Health care
| 32 | 1.96 | 2,500
|
| Transport
| 28 | 5.64 | 1,000
|
| Communications
| 5 | 1.12 | 5
|
| Recreation and culture
| 42 | 2.69 | 2,400
|
| Education
| 4 | 0.60 | 100
|
| Hotels, cafes and restaurants
| 11 | 4.09 | 500
|
| Miscellaneous goods and services
| 30 | 2.88 | 2,000
|
| TOTAL
| 456 | 100.00 | 34,500
|
All goods and services included in the CPI computation are
classified according to the COICOP classification.
Household consumption expenditure
Consumption expenditure used for the derivation of the weights
includes monetary expenditures for food, beverage and tobacco,
food away of home, non-food item and services. The expenditures
cover all goods, bought and consumed by households except the
products acquired for industrial and commercial purposes. The
following items are not included: goods consumed from own
production, business, goods obtained free of charge from parents,
relatives, employer or received in the form of social or human
support, private non- monetary transfers, lottery games.
Consumer price index does not also cover expenditures related to
capital formation, income, real estate and other direct taxes.
Such expenditures like alimony payment, loans and credits returns
and other monetary payments not related to the acquisition of
goods and services are also excluded.
In the case when goods are purchased on credit, full price of the
purchase is included.:p.Second hand purchases are included
together with new purchases. Insurance connected with dwellings,
transport, health and civil liability are included.
Consumption expenditure and CPI exclude payments for life
insurance, contribution to social insurance and pension funds,
income and other direct taxes, remittances, gifts and other
similar disbursements.
Sample selection
Localities are selected according to the geographical location,
the level of supply of the consumer market, the size of the
population and communications with other territories. 2,870 trade
and service outlets of all types and of different ownership forms
are selected by the price collectors, who are thoroughly trained
in their work in advance. The selection is based on the
popularity of the outlet, geographical location, ownership type,
etc.
Large, medium and small outlets, specialised and combined and
market places, situated in different regions of the cities and
towns, are selected for the survey.
Items for price collection
are selected with purposive sampling taking into account their
importance in the household expenditure, representativity of the
price movements of a basic class and their availability on the
market for a reasonable length of time. Price collectors in
consultation with retailers select, from the variety of items,
one which best reflects the price movements, is constantly on
sale, has the highest demand and is easy to recognise.
Method of data collection
Price data are collected in 10 county and 9 regional centres.
Food commodities are priced between the seventeenth and twentieth
day of each month, non-food items are priced between the seventh
and fifteenth day, and services are recorded between the fourth
and sixth day. Each item is priced at 8-10 outlets in cities and
4-6 outlets in regional centres. Sale prices are taken into
account when the commodities are available to all potential
consumers, are of good quality, have no changes in
specifications, are on sale for the whole month and are in big
demand. Free market prices for items which also have official
prices are registered on the open markets. From the second-hand
prices only those for second-hand cars are used for CPI
alculation.
Housing
Rent index includes rents for public apartments and
dwellings in private ownership. Payments for municipal services
are excluded.
Owner-occupied housing is not fully reflected in the CPI.
Maintenance expenditures for one square meter of the total area
are included under sub-group Services for maintenance and
repairs of the dwelling
.
Specification of varieties
Each commodity and service is described, presenting the basic
technical and qualitative characteristics. For some items
(mostly food products and several services) the specifications
are very precise and price collectors are required to keep
to them. Specifications for the majority of manufactured
goods are quite flexible. In that case, the specific
variety of a representative item is selected by the price
collector, whose duty is to complete the wide description of
the representative item with specific, supplementary information
(colour, composition, brand, model etc). This information
facilitates the pricing in the next periods.
Substitution, quality changes
When a variety is permanently unavailable, a new variety is
chosen with specification as close as possible to the previous
one.
Small quality changes are ignored. When there are significant
quality differences and no overlapping period for which prices
for old and new items are available, the price collector with
assistance of the retailer estimates the price change due to
quality change. When the information is not sufficient to asses
the difference, the last price is repeated for one month and the
price of new item is introduced in the calculation when there are
prices for the reference period and the period prior to that.
New products are included at the time of the CPI revision.
Seasonal items
Last available price is carried forward for months when the item
is not available on the market. Weights are held constant.
Computation
The CPI has been computed since December 1990.
Since May 1992, the index is computed according to the modified
Laspeyres formula.
At first, average price for each item in
every city and regional centre is computed as an arithmetic mean.
Then it is compared with the average price from the previous month.
The resulting short- term price relative is multiplied by
long-term price relative of the previous month to derive the
price index of each item in each territorial unit. National
level indexes are obtained by weighting these long-term price
relatives by the number of population in each territorial unit.
Other information
In 1999 the classification of representative goods and services
will be renewed, new weights will be drawn up and the price base
period for the CPI calculation will be changed.
Organisation and publication
Lithuanian Department of Statistics
Monthly publication Information note on consumer price index
,
Quarterly bulletin Consumer and producer price indices
,
Monthly bulletin Economic and Social Development in Lithuania
,
Statistical Yearbook of Lithuania
.