Statistics Norway

Division for price statistics.

Postbox 2633 St. Hanshaugen NO-0131 Oslo

Producer Price Index (PPI).

NACE Rev. 2.

Most market activities within Sections B to E of NACE Rev. 2.

The following activities are covered: mining (05, 07, 08), oil and gas extraction (06), extraction related services (09), manufacturing (10-33), electricity (35) and water supply (36) according to NACE Rev. 2.

The following activities are not covered: mining of uranium and thorium ores (07.21), processing of nuclear fuel (24.46), building of ships and boats (30.1), manufacturing of aeroplanes and spacecraft (30.3) and manufacture of military fighting machinery (30.4).

In the same questionnnaries we ask about output prices (domestic and eksport markets) and import prices. Output prices of products sold in the domestic market or for exports, defined as prices excluding VAT and other net taxes on products. Export prices are FOB. Import prices are CIF including customs duty.  

Extraordinary discounts should not be included. Real transactions prices rather than list prices should be used. The prices correspond to prices stated at moment of order. Prices should be valid per 15th of the month. The questionnaires also include check boxes for “expired commodities" and "temporary out of sale". If the reported price increases or decreases with more then 20 per cent from last month the respondent are asked to give a short explanation. In addition the questionnaire includes an area where additional information can be noted, for example replacements for expired commodities.

Local Kind of Activity Unit (LKAU).

All commodities and some services produced by companies within mining (05, 07, 08), oil and gas extraction (06), extraction related services (09), manufacturing (10 - 33), electricity (35) and water supply (36).

The following industries are not covered: mining of uranium and thorium ores (07.21), processing of nuclear fuel (24.46), building of ships and boats (30.1), manufacturing of airplanes and spacecraft (30.3) and manufacture of military fighting machinery (30.4).

The commodities, whose prices are measured, are mainly from enterprises belonging to these industries, and the enterprises are sampled from Statistics Norway's Register of Establishments and Enterprises. Parts of the primary industries and wholesalers are also included in order to cover first-hand domestic transactions.

National.

The Producer Price Index has been compiled since 1977, and published series exist down to a 2-digit ISIC level from 1977 to December 2000. These series have been discontinued since December 2000. The revision in January 2001 implies a break in the series. Series grouped according to NACE rev 2 exist as of January 2000 on a 2-digit level, and some on a 3-digit level.

Base year is 2021=100 from March 2024 and onwards.

Prices in Norwegian Kroner.

Month.

National legal acts:

The legal basis is The Statistical Act of 21st of June 2019 No. 32 section 10 and 20

The reporting units are obliged to provide information. Fines for refusing to provide information are laid down by the Statistics of 21st of June 2019 No. 32

European legislation:

Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics (EBS-Regulation)

Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistic (General Implementing Act)

STS data from the Norwegian producer price index are transmitted to Eurostat on a regular monthly basis.

Confidential micro data: According to § 7 of the Statistics Act, collected data are subject to secrecy and are to be kept or erased in a secure manner. Any use of the data must be in accordance with the rules set out by the Data Inspectorate.

Time series that are not to be published: The publication of data is subject to the provisions of § 7 of the Statistics Act. The main rule is that data should not be published if they can be traced back to the respondent.

Data is only published at an activity level at which it is not confidential. Detailed confidential data is aggregated with other confidential or non-confidential cells to produce a non-confidential (non-standard NACE) aggregate.

In data transmitted to Eurostat some series are marked as confidential.

The publication schedule is pre-released in Statistics Norway's Advance Release Calendar (https://www.ssb.no/en/kalender).

The release calendar is avalible on Statistics Norway's webpage (https://www.ssb.no/en/).

No governmental or non-governmental bodies have prior access to the statistics before its release.

Monthly.

Every month at https://www.ssb.no/en/ppi.

http://www.ssb.no/en/ppi

All released data are avalible in Statistics Norway's online database. https://www.ssb.no/en/statbank/list/ppi

No microdata are avaliable for the public.

Transmission to Eurostat.

Data are also available through Statistics Norway's API (https://www.ssb.no/en/omssb/tjenester-og-verktoy/api).

Information about methodology and how the statistics are produced is provided in the "About the statistics" section at the website (https://www.ssb.no/en/ppi). See espcially under "Production" which lies under "About the statistics".

Documentation on quality management are avalible on: http://www.ssb.no/en/ppi (About the Statistics).

ESS Code of Practice. 

Relevance: The statistics is relevant in the way that it is defined as one of the STS indicators. It is also relevant when preforming quality checks with other indicators such as PII. Media also use the indicator when assessing the business cycle.

Accuracy and reliability: Total non response by the time of release is on average 1,3 per cent for 2023.

Timeliness and punctuality: The statistics is released about 10 days after the end of reference month. Statistics Norway’s release system on Internet assures data to be published exactly 8:00 AM, and the date is given in the release calendar not less than 3 months prior to the release.

Comparability: Geographically comparability with other countries is assured by using international standards given in the Eurostat framework (same reference year, same classification ; NACE Rev.2). While there may be some quality issues with comparability over time. This is due to the revision of standard classification NACE Rev. 2, and back-casting of time series prior to the implementation of the new standard.

Coherence: Quality assessment is carried out by comparing with other short-term indicators.

The statistics are used, among others, by the public sector, the financial industry and other industries. The statistics is in itself, and are part of several key economic indicators that are important for monotoring the economy. The index is also used for regulating the price of different contracts over time. The statistics are used in the production of the national accounts as well as other relevant areas of statistics within Statistics Norway.

Among other users of the PPI statistics are Eurostat, IMF and other foreign and international actors.

No quantitative measures.

Ongoing discussions with internal users. Sporadic contact via mail or phone with external users. 

The statistics are complient with the EBS regulation.

No quantitative measure.

The sampling error in the PPI are not expected to be a big issue. Statistcs Norway has especially good data on external trade of commodities through Norway's comprehensive customs- and declerations system. This allows us to sample products and enterprises on 8-digit (Norwegian) HS/CN level. For the domestic market the Prodcom-survey are used and combined with the exports data. This source is not as comprehensive and are not always consistent with the external trade data. It is expected that the domestic market are more prone to sampling errors than exports and imports.

Large complex enterprise groups and other enterprises, that organizes them selfs in ways such that the productuion and flow of goods are not easily defined in accordance with traditional statistical measurements, might be a source of sampling error.

Non-sampling errors are expected to exist and to a higher degree than sampling errors. The biggest issue is expected to be measuring errors related to the monthly survey and to the questionnaire itself which is not always self-explaing. This includes: respondents not understaing the questionnaire, respondents not understanding how we define a price or distinguish between markets or respondents just being uninterested in providing up-to-date and representative data. This can lead to wrong prices and wrong combiantions of products, prices and markets. Other non-sampling errors could be quality changes that are not acounted for by us.

The response rate is on average 98,7per cent (unweighted) for 2023. 

The statistics are published 10 days after the end of the measuring month. The statistics are not subject to revision.

All releases are delivered on time, based on scheduled release dates.

The statistics are produced at a national level only.

The statistics in its current form are comparable back to 2000.

The statistics existed before that and are, in its previous form, comparable from 1977 and until 1999.

Most of the business statistics at Statistics Norway are comparable across domains. The same classification (NACE rev. 2) is incorporated in all relevant statistical domains.

For most relevant purposes data are classified such that it is directly comparable across statistical domains. Correspondance tables are maintained where needed. Data from different sources may not be consistent and that is mostly expected to stem from measuring errors.

In 2023 there were approx 3100 working hours dedicated to production and development of the statistics within the price division. 200 or some hours from other departments, such as data collection, IT and administartion can probably be added to that.

The burden on the respondents are measured from time to time through the regular monthly survey. There are about 1179 units in this survey which covers domestic, export and import market prices. The median time usage were 15 minutes per survey in 2023 which gives 3 hours of time usage each year for the median respondent. The total burden is thus 3537 hours a year based on the median respondent.

The statistics are not subject to revision after it is published unless big errors were to be revealed. The same revision policies applied to STS data released nationally and transmitted to Eurostat

If a big error is revealed it will be revised and the correct statistic will be re-published with a highly visible mark alerting the users of the revision. No revisions have been made in 2023, nor are any revisions scheduled.

MAR=0

MR=0

Type of source

Prices are mainly surveyed using electronic questionnaires. In addition, data are collected from various other sources such as: the external trade (internal), the consumer price index (internal), the London Metal Exchange, the BLS and other available rescources on the web.

Frame on which the source is based

The external trade data, the Prodcom survey and the central register of establishments and enterprises. All in-house.

Sample or census

Sample.

Criteria for stratification

The stratification is 2-digit NACE * market (domestic/eksports/imports). Within each strata a product (HS/CN) based PPS-sampling are carried out. The "size" is value of the product (domestic sales, exports or imports) combined with the price variance within the class, where value are the most important parameter. This resembles a Neyman-allocation. A large number of products are thus drawn with certainty to comlpy with the restrictions of a PPS sampling with replacement scheme. 

Threshold values and percentages

Number of reporting units is about 1179

Number of products is about 3908

Frequency of updating the sample

Annual or semiannual.

Monthly.

Electronic questionnaire.

The responses from the electronical questionnaires are ongoingly downloaded to the production system. The data are checked for duplicates, comments, product replacements and extraordinary little movement over time. In addition the data are checked for extreme deviations in prices. If there are significant price changes and there is no clear explanation or reason, the establishments are contacted directly. Observations with great impact are checked and analyzed. Sectors and industries that has great impact or that shows unuasual or special development are analysed and discussed.

Estimates for non-response

In the event of non-response, the price is imputed by using the percentage change of the index for a similar group of products. Which aggregate of similar products to be used is determined by the number of actual price observations within an aggregate. If there are five or more observations within the elemntary aggregate the missing price is given as the price times the index change at that level. If there are fewer, the algorithm will look for actual price observations in an aggregate on a successively higher level. The algorithm works from HS/CN (elementary aggragate) through 6-digit, 4-digit and 3-digit NACE. If none delivers at least five actual prices, last month's price is copied. By using the percentage change from the previous to the present period, the variance is minimized.

Estimates for grossing-up to population levels

Data are not grossed up.

Type of index

Jevons index at the elementary level. Annual chain linked Young index at the aggregate level. 

Method of weighting and chaining

The weights are updated annually and derived from the most recent (t-3) national accounts (NA), the PRODCOM survey and the external trade data. To keep the weights as up to date as possible, weights from the NA are projected to year T-1 using the most recent quarterly national account totals. This way, weights always refer to the year previous to the index period. These 6-digit CPA-NA levels are then distributed to HS/CN commodities using the PRODCOM survey and external trade data. Short-term indices are chained annually.

Short-term indices are calculated using December year T-1 as base period. The development in these short term indices is then chained to the long-term index. New price information is introduced immediately if the commodity is represented in the weights, otherwise it is included at the turn of the year. Discontinued price quotations are imputed till the end of the year, and then excluded.

No adjustments are made to the data.

https://www.ssb.no/en/ppi

https://www.ssb.no/en/pif