Items most commonly consumed by households were selected to be used for the index calculation. The items in each group were place in descending order according to their shares in total consumption and their cumulative values were estimated. Items that constituted 85 to 90 per cent of total consumption in the group were selected to represent that group in the index. This ratio was 100 per cent in some groups and around 60 to 65 per cent in others.
Major groups | Number of items | Weights | Approximate number of price quotations |
---|---|---|---|
Food | 132 | 34.88 | 36451 |
Clothing and footwear | 62 | 12.80 | 18727 |
Furniture, furnishings and household equipment | 53 | 11.24 | 11199 |
Medical and personal care | 29 | 3.44 | 4470 |
Transport and communication | 23 | 6.48 | 1278 |
Education and entertainment | 33 | 5.01 | 3748 |
Housing: | ... | 26.15 | 4397 |
Rent | 2 | ... | ... |
Fuel and light | 8 | ... | ... |
Repairs and maintenance | 5 | ... | ... |
Total | 347 | 100.00 | 80270 |
Consumption was taken as purchasing
that is, as
entering into the possession of a household. In general, the moment
of purchase was used and delays in the delivery of goods were
ignored. Except for purchases on an instalment basis, the act of
purchasing wais regarded as complete when the goods entered into the
possession of the household. For purchases on an
instalment basis, the delivery of the goods was taken as the
completion of the purchase. For income in kind
the moment of
entering into the possession of the household was taken as the basis.
Prices of the goods which do not show regional differences are collected centrally in order to prevent mistakes which could arise during separate collection, and to reduce the work load of regional agencies. For example, State hospitals, airlines, postal services, newspapers, telephone charges, encyclopedias, text-books published by Ministry of Education, university fees, medicine, electricity, monopoly goods, etc. are covered centrally.
In the collection of monthly current prices, it was decided to collect the prices twice a month for all goods except fresh fruit and vegetables in order to be able to obtain all possible price changes. These prices are collected in the weeks which include the 10th and 20th. Since the prices of fresh fruit and vegetables show greater variability, their prices are collected once a week, i.e. four times a month.
The prices used in the index are the regular prices paid by any member of the public. Credit charges and discounts are ignored but sales are taken into consideration for clothing and fabrics.
The houses for which rents are recorded in each settlement are chosen by taking into consideration the socio-economic structure and housing characteristics of the districts included in the samples in the 1987 Household Expenditure Survey which were occuopied by households with an average monthly income of 50,000 to 1,000,000 lira.
The weights were analysed on the basis of items. The decline in the weight of an early vegetable or fruit due to its underconsumption and the increase in its weight when its price falls and overconsumption occurs were studied and controlled with respect to each month.
The urban area consumer price index is calculated as the weighted average of the indices for the five urban regions, taking as weights the total consumption in each region.
Separate indices are published for the five main urban regions and for 16 towns and for detailed sub-groups.
The indices are published in the Press Bulletin on the fourth day of the month following their calculation.
Aylik Istatistik Bulteni(Monthly Bulletin of Statistics) (Ankara).
Idem: Wholesale and Consumer Price Indexes Monthly
Bulletin
, (January, February, March 1990).