Consumer price indices

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 2019 basket for the Italian consumer price indices for the whole nation (NIC) and for blue and white-collar households (FOI) is made up of 1,507 elementary products (1,489 in 2018), which are grouped into 922 products and 407 product aggregates.

The 2019 basket for the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) is made up of 1,524 elementary products (1,506 in 2018), grouped into 914 products and 411 product aggregates.

The review of the basket of products takes into account the changes in the household spending patterns and enriches, in some cases, the range of products which represent consolidated consumption.

In 2019, wild berries, ginger, electric bicycles, scooter sharing, headset with microphone, hoverboard, web TV, garden furniture (table, chair, outdoor storage), adult diapers, bed crosspiece are added to the basket.

Moreover, for the compilation of the index of Electricity (ECOICOP 04.5.1) prices are collected on the liberalized market in addition to the regulated market.

On the other hand, Unrecorded recording media and Energy saving light bulb are removed from the basket.
In total about 6,000,000 price quotations are collected each month, from different sources: 458,000 of them are collected locally by the Municipal Offices of Statistics (MOS); 238,000 are collected directly by Istat and about 5,200,000 come from scanner data. In addition, about 86,000 quotes are collected from automotive fuels prices database of the Ministry of Economic Development.

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