Sweden
Official title
Consumer Price Index (Konsumentprisindex).
Scope
The index is compiled monthly and covers the whole population,
both urban and rural.
Official base
1980 = 100.
Source of weights
The weights and selected items are revised at the beginning of each
year. The weights for major groups are based on the Swedish National
Accounts System: quarterly statistics for the first three-quarters of
the preceding year supplemented by an estimate for the fourth quarter.
Weights within groups are derived from the most recent sources, &eg for
food items, from surveys and estimates made by the Swedish National
Agricultural Market Board. The weights for other items are derived from
the latest household expenditure survey. The household expenditure
survey covers all expenditure of private households in Sweden during one
year.
Weights and composition
| Major groups
| Number of items
| Weights
| Approximate number of price quotations
|
| Food
| (1) 25+770 | 172 | 18000
|
| Alcoholic beverages
| (a) (1) 15 | 32 | (a) 500
|
| Tobacco
| (1) 25 | 21 | 1200
|
| Clothing
| 27 | 62 | 900-1800
|
| Footwear
| 10 | 13 | 650
|
| Housing, fuel and electricity
| (b) | 270 | (b)
|
| Furniture and household equipment
| (1) 39+60 | 65 | 3300
|
| Transport and communication
| 22 | 175 | (2) 800
|
| Recreation, entertainment and cultural services
| 50+20 | 98 | 2100
|
| Miscellaneous
| (1) 33+30 | 92 | (3) 2800
|
| Total
| ... | 1000 | ...
|
Note: (a) and (b) See below. (1) Sampled specified varieties.
(2) Excluding price quotations and calculations for travelling.
(3) Excluding calculations for medical care, dental services and medicine.
(a) Almost all items or varieties covered for wine,
spirits and strong beer (weight 28). (b) See text below.
Household consumption expenditure
Consumption expenditure used for deriving the weights
includes all private family consumption of goods and services
inside the private sector, i.e. paid by households, including
expenditure on certain capital goods (except land, own
permanent house and weekend cottage).
The consumption costs for home ownership are included.
Durable goods credit purchases are registered at the time of
delivery. Second-hand purchases, trade-in of used goods and in
part payment for new ones are not included in the index.
Also excluded are financial transactions, such as life insurance,
other social insurance, income tax and other direct taxes. Gifts
are registered as consumption of given goods or services by the
giver at the time of purchase. Income in kind is only a small
part of Swedish private consumption. The value of income in
kind is only estimated for food from surveys regularly published
by the Swedish National Agricultural Market Board in their food
statistics.
Method of data collection
Prices are collected around the 15th of each month by agents from
a random sample of about 900 retail outlets and service
establishments. A general interviewer organisation of about 200
persons is used for all countrywide interview surveys including
price collection. The supervisors are centrally stationed in the
SCB office keeping contact with the interviewers by telephone,
letters and intermittent conferences. Food prices,
except certain fresh food i.e. bread, fish vegetables and fruit,
and other everyday commodities are collected each month from price
lists applied in a random sample of approximately 60 shops. Once
a year, in December, the prices of these commodities are
collected from the shops by agents. These prices are only used
for calculating the long-term link (see below). Postal
questionnaires are used for rents, electricity and
water. Telephone interviews are used for gasoline and cars.
Data for medical care, transport and communication are obtained
from official tariffs. The prices used in the index are the
regular prices paid by any member of the public. Indirect taxes
are included in the prices. Discounts on cash payments are
deducted. Bargain prices during the price collection period are
recorded. Black-market prices are irrelevant. Only cash prices
are recorded; hire-purchase and credit terms are not included.
Also excluded are second-hand purchases and the trade-in of used
goods and in part payment for new ones and direct import
purchases by households.
Housing
Rent surveys are carried out four times a year, in January, April, July
and October, or when negotiated rents come into force, from
a sample of 1,000 rented dwellings. Heating costs are
included in the recorded total rent. A sample of newly-built
apartments is included successively in the rent index
calculations.
An owner-occupied housing index is calculated according to
the cost development each month. All common house costs are included
in the cost calculations, such as costs for interest,
house insurance, water, garbage collection, chimney sweeping, tax
on real estate, heating, electricity and house repairs, as well
as depreciation. Interest costs are calculated on the total
amount of capital defined in terms of the purchase price (by
present owner). State grants to subsidise interests are
deducted.
Specification of varieties
The item definitions are specified as far as possible. The
price collector specifies each priced item more closely, so
that the same article or service can be priced next time even by
a new price collector. The specifications for certain food items and
other goods purchased each day are given in detail, including
the article reference number.
Substitution, quality change, etc.
Quality changes are judged as far as possible at the price-collection
stage. Only the price difference for equivalent quality is recorded.
For certain food and other everyday commodities, substitution is not
normally permitted. For clothing, substitutions are made only between
items with equivalent quality according to certain criteria. New
products are normally introduced at the time of the annual examination
of the selection of items. If possible, a given type or quality which
disappears is replaced, otherwise, a non-response is reported.
Seasonal items
Winter clothes are priced only from September to
March. The last recorded price is then used in the index
calculations during the off season, April to August.
Prices of certain items (potatoes, vegetables and fruit) are
adjusted for seasonal variations. Seasonal quotients are
computed for the prices of these items based on the seasonal prices
for the three previous years.
Computation
The index is a chain with yearly links, with the weights changed
for each link. Two different types of links (each link with
December of the preceding year = 100) are used, i.e. a short-term
link and a long-term link.
The short-term link is used for month from
January to December. The long-term link is used only for yearly
links from December to December.
The link for each month is firstly computed as a weighted
arithmetic average of separate price relatives for items with
prices in the previous December taken as 100. These results are
then linked back by the long-term links through December of each
preceding year to 1980.
Other information
A Net Price Index is also calculated, defined as an index
in which the prices of consumer goods have been reduced by the
sum of the indirect taxes which in different production stages
constitute cost elements in the production of the final consumer
goods. The prices are also adjusted by including certain
subsidies.
The Basic Amount statistics are used to adjust basic
pensions, supplementary pensions, governmental study loan,
certain life-annuities and maintenance allowances.
Organisation and publication
Statistics Sweden: Statistiska meddelanden
, serie P14 och
P15 (Statistical reports, Series P14 and P15) (Stockholm).
Idem: Allmän Manadsstatistik
(Monthly Digest of
Swedish Statistics).
Sveriges Officiella Statistik, Statistika Central Byrän (SCB):
Konsumentpriser och index beräkningar 1989
(Stockholm,
1990).