International Comparison Program Executive Board Meeting

Transcription

1 Participants: International Comparison Program Executive Board Meeting Millennium UN Plaza Hotel, U Thant Room One United Nations Plaza New York, NY 10017, USA February 25, 2007 MINUTES Dennis Trewin Chair Shaida Badiee World Bank Paul Cheung UN Statistics Division Rob Edwards International Monetary Fund Pieter Everaers Eurostat Enrico Giovannini OECD David Fenwick ONS, United Kingdom Michel Mouyelo-Katoula African Development Bank Ben Kiregyera Uganda Vladimir Sokolin Rosstat, Russia Bishnu Pant Asian Development Bank Peter Harper Australian Bureau of Statistics Fred Vogel World Bank ICP Global Office Misha Belkindas World Bank Yonas Biru World Bank ICP Global Office Abdoulaye Adam African Development Bank Mikhail Korolev 0 Commonwealth of Independent States Andrey Kosarev Bureau of Economic Analysis, Moscow

2 Discussions regarding regional status and plans for publication The IMF is considering the use of PPPs in its formula to determine member quotas. The UN Contributions committee is also reviewing its procedures to determine member shares. The IMF especially needs assurance that the December date will be met if it is to consider using the PPPs. The following concerns and risks are: The December publication date not being met. Countries disowning their data because they did not know of all possible uses of the data before signing up for the ICP. PPPs for countries who did not participate in the ICP. IMF, for example, has 185 member countries. The sustainability of the program and whether it will continue. Other potential uses of PPPs, such as evaluating climate change, suggest a communication strategy is needed for releasing ICP results. Concerns and questions were raised about the planned release of HHC data in September; mainly whether this effort will take resources from those needed to produce the December results at the full level of. The publication schedule shows the Global report being released in December 2007 with the Eurostat/OECD final results to be released in January Concerns raised about the two reports showing the same results revealed that the problem with obtaining Eurostat/OECD final data rests with a few countries not submitting data per the timetable. A process is needed to deal with complaints about the ICP results. Discussions about major milestones The milestones in the annex provide a broad overview which led to many questions being raised and suggestions offered: Is there a more detailed work plan in place? Could a brief monthly status report be sent to the Board? Should a risk analysis including mitigation strategies be undertaken keeping in mind the importance of meeting the December deadline? How will the December report be released full paper publication, or a web publication with a paper release to follow? A strategy is needed to inform data users about the pending publication and prepare them for the results. It was suggested a set of frequently asked questions be prepared

3 Should the timeline contain a period for Board review and sign-off of the results? Concerns were raised about publishing regional data before the global results because of the risk that the global data may show some different results coming from updated national accounts or additional analysis. Discussions about imputing PPP s for non-participating countries included the review role of the ICP Board in this effort. Discussions about the Ring data review The Board was given an overview of global data resulting from the first computation of Ring results for household consumption excluding health, education and housing. These first results indicate possible level problems between regions with the Asia prices being too low and the opposite occurring in Africa and W. Asia. The discussion included questions about the validity of the review process, whether or not Ring countries could be deleted entirely, and whether additional data collections should be taken in selected Ring countries. Board Action Items 1. The September data release should be a press release including Price Level Indices for Actual Individual, Collective, and Total Final. This release may contain fewer countries than may be included in the December release. 2. The December release will be web based mainly providing the data tables of major results. The reports should be released by mid-december to precede the holiday season. The full report as described in Annex C of the Board Status report will be released in January. 3. The Board Chair and the OECD will collaborate on a letter to be sent to the US and any other OECD countries putting the timeline for obtaining final OECD data for the December release in danger. 4. Risk analysis should be undertaken with respect to the December release date and mitigation strategies identified. 5. The Executive Board will not directly sign-off on the final results. It will instead rely on its representatives among the regional coordinators and the Technical Advisory Group. It is essential that a TAG meeting take place for this final review. 6. The Global Office will provide the Board an assessment of the data quality prior to the data release informing it of unusual situations, etc. This will be primarily intended to help the Board respond to questions

4 7. The Global Office has two efforts underway to develop methodology to impute for missing countries. These will be presented to the TAG for its input. a. The IMF offered its assistance. b. The imputation is a World Bank responsibility as it has been doing for the World Development Indicators. 8. A communication strategy needs to be prepared and provided to the Board for its next meeting. a. This should include the strategy to inform users about how the results can be used, why they may differ from previous results, and that some results were based on benchmark data and others on imputations. b. The strategy should include how to inform users about the September results and how they could differ in the December publication. The same strategy should apply to the regional vs. Global reports. c. The Global Office should prepare a set of frequently asked questions/answers to assist with questions coming from the September and December releases. d. The strategy should include how to deal with complaints about the data. This needs to be a two-tiered activity with regions handling those about intra region questions. The GO will respond to inter-regional issues and assist regions with questions coming to them. 9. The Global Office should send a brief monthly status report to the Board, especially informing it of milestones not being met, especially if by major countries. 10. The Global Office and regions should continue with the Ring work plan as provided and keep the Board informed of progress in its monthly report. Additional data collection should be undertaken only as a last resort and with the concurrence of the Board. 11. The effort to validate the Ring data should attempt to avoid the deletion of entire countries; instead the inclusion/exclusion should be at individual product and basic heading levels. The process should be transparent and countries informed of the actions taken. 12. The Board considered whether the next meeting should be in Istanbul in late June in conjunction with the Forum or in Lisboa in August with the International Statistical Institute (ISI) Conference. There will be an informal meeting in Istanbul on June 26, 2007 for Board members present, with the agenda focusing on publication matters. There will be a formal meeting of the Board in Lisboa during the August ISI conference

5 Annex. Overview of Work Program Annex A. Steps remaining to publication 2007 Regional Comparison 2008 Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Expenditure wts Compute and Validate PPPs, volume indices Publish Af WA LAC As/E/O WA Af/As E/O/CIS Calibrate prices to National -Annual -- CPI and capital city to national scaling factors ----Factors to backcast to Ring Comparison to link regions Representativity codes-- review and update Main survey average prices --- regional review and update Health, education -- country review/complete first data validation Dwellings and government-- Initial submission construction, equipment--initial submission Compute and validate linking factors and aggregates Regional Coordinator Workshop Global Comparison Compute and validate Global PPPs and per capita indices Regional Workshop to review final results Publish results Validation of prices and preliminary review of PPPs Final review of PPPs and per capita indices - 5 -