The producer price index (PPI) measures the rate at which the prices of producer goods and services are changing overtime. It is a key statistic for economic and business decision making and inflation monitoring. The Producer Price Index Manual: Theory and Practice provides clear, up-to-date guidance on the concepts, uses, methods, and economic theory of the PPI, including information on classifications, sources, compilation techniques, and analytical uses of the PPI. The Manual supersedes the previous international guidance on PPIs (available in the Manual on Producers’ Price Indices for Industrial Goods, published by the United Nations Statistics Division in 1979). The Manual's conceptual framework derives from the System of National Accounts1993 and recent developments in index number theory. Preparation of the Manual was undertaken by the Intersecretariat Working Group on Price Statistics through a technical expert group chaired by the IMF and involving representatives from the ILO, the OECD, the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the World Bank, national statistical offices, and academic institutions.

The consumer price index (CPI) measures the rate at which prices of consumer goods and services change over time. It is used as a key indicator of economic performance, as well as in the setting of monetary and socio-economic policy such as indexation of wages and social security benefits, purchasing power parities and inflation measures. This manual contains methodological guidelines for statistical offices and other agencies responsible for constructing and calculating CPIs, and also examines underlying economic and statistical concepts involved. Topics covered include: expenditure weights, sampling, price collection, quality adjustment, sampling, price indices calculations, errors and bias, organisation and management, dissemination, index number theory, durables and user costs.

It has become trite to observe that increases in health care costs have become unsustainable. How best for policy to address these increases, however, depends in part on the degree to which they represent increases in the real quantity of medical services as opposed to increased unit prices of existing services. And an even more fundamental question is the degree to which the increased spending actually has purchased improved health. Accounting for Health and Health Care addresses both these issues. The government agencies responsible for measuring unit prices for medical services have taken steps in recent years that have greatly improved the accuracy of those measures. Nonetheless, this book has several recommendations aimed at further improving the price indices.