Price indexes are used to compare living standards across countries and to measure changes in prices over time. This workshop focuses on both these themes.
The first part aims to shed light on the International Comparisons Program (ICP). This is a statistical partnership coordinated by the World Bank, which provides comparable estimates of income levels and prices across almost all countries in the world. In particular, some of the problems encountered in ICP 2011 (released in April 2014) will be considered, along with its implications for our understanding of economic growth, global inequality and poverty.
The second part considers some of the different ways in which house price indexes can be constructed, and the importance of such indexes for economic policy. In particular, the focus will be on some recent methodological developments, and on the state of house price indexes and data in an Austrian context.
Talks are given by Robert Hill (University of Graz), Sergey Sergeev (Statistics Austria), Prasada Rao (University of Queensland, Australia), Sofie Waltl (University of Graz) and Karin Wagner (Austrian National Bank).
