Consumer price indices - Basket, weight structure and survey updates

As every year, Istat reviews the list of items included in the consumer price index basket and updates as well the survey techniques and the weights of each item to compile inflation.

The changes made in 2023, with reference to both the weights and the basket, reflect the constant evolution of household spending behaviours but also the impact of events which affect purchasing decisions and structure of consumer spending.

The 2023 basket for the Italian consumer price indices for the whole nation (NIC) and for blue and white-collar households (FOI) is made up of 1,885 elementary products (1,772 in 2022), which are grouped into 1,061 products and 423 product aggregates.

The 2023 basket for the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) is made up of 1,906 elementary products (they were 1,792 also in 2022), grouped into 1,080 products and 427 product aggregates.

The review of the basket of products takes into account the changes in the household spending patterns (also due to legal provisions) and enriches, in some cases, the range of products representing consolidated consumption.

In 2023, the main products added to the basket to represent the changes in the household spending patterns or to improve the coverage of expenditure aggregates already represented in the basket, are: Sports medical examination, Smartphone repair, Smart speakers assistant, Organic range for some fresh fruits and for some fresh vegetables, Seedless grapes, Gold kiwi, Gentle lettuce, Freshly caught tuna, Farmed fresh turbot, Women’s leggings, Radiography, Beauty massage.

In 2023 no product leaves the basket since all those already present do not show signs of obsolescence such as to justify their exclusion.

In total over 33 million price quotations are used each month to estimate Italian inflation. They come from different sources: 398,000 of them are collected locally by the Municipal Offices of Statistics (MOS) and concern 51.3% of the basket in terms of weight; about 189,000 are collected directly by Istat (24.8% of the basket) and about 33 million come from scanner data (13.6% of the basket). Then, more than 167,000 quotes are collected from automotive fuels prices database of the Ministry of Economic Development (5.8% of the basket). In addition, tobacco prices are collected from Customs and Monopolies Agency for the detection of tobacco (1.9% of the basket) and one million and half house rent prices are provided by the Real Estate Market Observatory of the Tax Office (2.6% of the basket).

Note: On 22 February 2023 at 12:00 am the full text of this press release has been replaced as a result of the update of the weights, as well as the related tables and comments.