Netherlands
Official title
Price Index Numbers of Final Consumption Expenditure.
Scope
The index is compiled monthly. It covers households of wage earners and
salaried employees, consisting of adults without children or with
resident children without incomes, and whose family incomes in 1985 were
below the wage limit for compulsory sickness benefit insurance.
The index covers the whole country.
Official base
1985 = 100.
Source of weights
The weights and selected items were derived from the household
expenditure survey conducted in 1985 among a sample of 962 households.
Weights and composition
| Major groups
| Number of items
| Weights
| Approximate number of price quotations
|
| Food
| 234 | 21.3 | ...
|
| Clothing and footwear
| 120 | 6.8 | ...
|
| Medical care
| 5 | 11.4 | ...
|
| Household goods
| 60 | 6.6 | ...
|
| Rent, fuel and light
| 41 | 27.2 | ...
|
| Transport and communication
| 49 | 11.4 | ...
|
| Education and recreation
| 103 | 8.4 | ...
|
| Other goods and services
| 78 | 6.9 | ...
|
| Total
| 690 | 100.0 | (a) ...
|
Note: (a) Every month an average number of 100,000 prices are collected (excluding rents, on which data are collected whenever there is a general rent increase).
Household consumption expenditure
Consumption expenditure for the purpose of the index comprises
all consumer goods and services on which private households incur
expenditure, including the purchases made from shops, department
stores and other suppliers; payments for services of mechanics or
craftsmen; spending in hotels, restaurants and cafés; payments for
transportation and public amusements; payments for services of
physicians, specialists, hospitals, pharmaceutical products and other
medical care; payments for domestic services; the administrative costs
of life insurance and pension funds; and spending on durable goods such
as furniture, radio sets, etc. It excludes voluntary transfers by
families to non-profit-making institutions; transfers within the
household sector; compulsory transfers by households to the government
and social insurance institutions; and savings in the form of premium
payments for life insurance and pensions.
Method of data collection
Prices are collected each month on the Thursday of the week including
the 15th, from selected outlets comprising market and street vendors,
mobile shops, department stores, small, medium and large retail outlets,
wholesalers and service establishments in 100 municipalities with over
10,000 inhabitants.
Prices are collected for about 1,200 items. Mail inquiries are used
for a number of items (excluding house rent), which together account for
about 38 per cent of the total weight. The prices collected are those
actually paid by the consumer and include indirect taxes. Clearance
sales are covered only when consumers can benefit without much
difficulty and when they last for at least one week. Discounts given in
cash at the time of purchase are deducted. Electricity,
gas and water prices are collected from the relevant companies.
Housing
Rent data are collected by mail, mainly from house owners or
administrators. Investigators collect rent data directly from
the tenants of about three per cent of rented housing, as mail inquiry
did not appear feasible for these cases. The rent inquiry takes place
in 482 of the 702 municipalities in the Netherlands.
The purchase of dwellings by private individuals for their own
use is not included in the index, but the services derived from
these dwellings are considered to be part of family consumption.
The value of such services is taken as corresponding to the rent of
comparable rented dwellings.
Specification of varieties
There are very precise quality descriptions for all goods and
services. Attention is paid to the weight, number, make, size,
material (for clothing), etc.
Substitution, quality change, etc.
New products are included in the weighting scheme at the next
change of base year. When an item disappears, another similar
item is substituted and a linking method is used.
Seasonal items
The group weights for potatoes, fresh vegetables and fruit,
flowers and indoor plants are kept constant each month. The
monthly within-group weights of these groups are not those for the
base year, but are based on an average ratio calculated over a
number of years ending with the base year.
There are two baskets for seasonal clothing and footwear: one for the
winter months and the other for the summer months. In March and
September both baskets are included in the weighting scheme, each with
half of the weight for this sub-group.
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.
The price relative for each item is calculated by dividing the
average price for the current period by the average price for the
base period.
Organisation and publication
Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (Central Bureau of
Statistics): Maandstatistiek van de prijzen
(Monthly
Bulletin of Price Statistics) (Voorburg).
Idem: Statistisch bulletin
(Statistical Bulletin).