The Price Index Processor System PIPS Niall O Hanlon

The Price Index Processor System PIPS Niall O’Hanlon

Content • General Overview of the PIPS – Some technical details • Functionality • Producer Price Index version demo • The Future for PIPS

The Software • Free to download at http: //www. unece. org/stats/downloads/SW_CPI_PPI/p ips. html – Software, source code, manual and discussion forum • Software is Visual Basic running on Microsoft Windows. Database stored on Microsoft Access, SQL or SQL Express.

The Software (2) • Excel for input and outputs • Code is Visual Basic (VB 6) with VB. Net version in development) • Incorporates/Implements ILO/IMF Manual recommendations

Functionality of PIPS • • Calculates PPI for all items by industry, by product, by establishment and by region Choice of classifications Monthly or Quarterly Pricing It allows one of the two alternative formulae: Laspeyres and Geometric Laspeyres It calculates missing indices & missing prices Direct Laspeyres and Short-term (Chained) Laspeyres Proofed methodology

Brief Demo of PPI version • System configuration (choice of classifications) • Establishment entry (and management) and batch upload • Entering weights, products and transactions • Entering prices, substitutions • Compilation preview (check) • Outliers • Index Compilation

Main Menu Screen Add New: Allow users to enter new establishments Edit: Allows users to edit establishment details/products details and enter price information Data Check: Used before index compilation to check for errors Review Data: Before Index Compilation Compile: Allows Index Compilation TS Report: Allows for Times Series Reports to be compiled System Config: Allows users to set up database properties.

System Configuration Screen

Establishment Entry This allows you to enter multiple establishments at one time through Excel upload This allows you to enter company products

Establishment Batch Upload

Entering Weight/Product/Transactions Company Weight entered here – turnover of company Transaction weight Transaction List created by user to represent the items company are pricing. Click to add new product group Click to enter prices of transactions

Price Input Screen: Option 1 Click on Pink Button to enter prices via Option 2 You can select the period to enter price for by selecting Set Compilation Date on this screen

Price Input Screen: Option 2 Allows you to add new month to insert price You can set this to reflect your threshold system for validation

Compilation Preview

Detection of Outliers

Index Compilation

Time Series Report

The Future for PIPS • Approximately 15 countries (mainly African or Caribbean) currently using PIPS. Many more interested especially in the PPI version • We are seeking a a donor to fund development completion work - migration to VB. Net - de-bugging - full testing of quarterly periodicity for PPI and ongoing maintenance and support