ICP-Workshop

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.

The program is as follows:

13:00-13:45 What is the International Comparisons Program (ICP), what purpose does it serve, and what are some of its main challenges going forward? (Robert Hill, University of Graz)

13:45-14:30 What were some of the biggest difficulties encountered in ICP 2011?

(Sergey Sergeev, Statistics Austria)

14:30-15:15 How has ICP 2011 changed our perception of global inequality and poverty?

(Prasada Rao, University of Queensland, Australia)

15:15-15:45 Coffee break/discussion

15:45-16:30 A quantile regression approach to constructing house price indexes (Sofie Waltl, University of Graz)

16:30-17:15 Monitoring the residential property market from a macroeconomic point of

view (Karin Wagner, Austrian National Bank)

Some information on each of the speakers is provided below.

Robert Hill is Professor of Macroeconomics at University of Graz. He was a member of the ICP 2011 Technical Advisory Group.

Sergey Segeev works in the Macroeconomic Statistics Department at Statistics Austria. He was a member of the ICP 2011 Technical Advisory Group.

Prasada Rao is Professor of Econometrics at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. He was a member of the ICP 2011 Technical Advisory Group.

Sofie Waltl is a doctoral student in Economics at University of Graz.

Dr. Karin Wagner works in the Department of Economic Analysis at the Austrian National Bank.