Statec - Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques

Unit SOC4 "Price statistics"

STATEC
B.P. 304
L-2013 Luxembourg
Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg

The services producer price index is a quarterly short-term indicator used for the business cycle analysis and for the deflation of production values.

NACE Rev2

Services producer price indices are calculated for following economic activities (NACE rev2)

H49, H51, H52, H53, J61, J62, J63, M69, M702, M71, M73, N78, N80, N81

Producer price index as defined in Regulation CE 1503/2006

enterprise

The population studied is composed of units whose main activity belongs to one of the sectors covered by the service producer price indices. The units are identified from the business register.

Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg

quarterly figures from 2006 on

Base 100 in 2015

Raw data are values expressed in euros. They serve to calculate the quarterly and annual indices and their growth rates.

This indicator is calculated quarterly.

European Business Statistics Regulation:

• 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)

National context :

Statec is the National Institute of statistics and economic studies of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Statec's administration is placed under the authority of the Ministry of the Economy and Foreign Trade. It is professionally and scientifically independent, i.e. it sets its own work programme in accordance with national and European statistical legislation, produces and disseminates data in complete neutrality.

The Law of July 10, 2011 on the organisation of the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies sets out the missions of Statec and its internal organisation. These missions are to provide a public information service of high quality to public and private decision-makers as well as to citizens. Statec is committed to produce statistics, analyses and studies giving a detailed, reliable and objective image of the society of Luxembourg.

Statec coordinates the statistical system of Luxembourg, organised according to the principle of statistical centralisation. For this purpose it widely relies on collaboration with other producers of data as well as with public and private research centres. Statec so centralises data available from public authorities to carry out its studies, but also to make them available to its users on a single platform. With the new law of July 10, 2011, applied scientific research is added to Statec’s missions.

There is no general datasharing. Nevertheless, results are send to Eurostat.

The following confidentiality principles are defined in article 16 of the law of 10 July 2011 on the organization of the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies.

STATEC guarantees the non-disclosure of confidential information when the statistical results are disseminated, except for foreign trade statistics. Regarding the latter, the detailed data that allows a resident exporter or importer to be indirectly identified is only kept confidential if the concerned economic operator sends a request for this to STATEC.

The data used to produce the statistics is deemed confidential when it allows an individual or legal entity to be directly or indirectly identified or comprises a risk of disclosure of individual information. To determine whether an individual or legal entity is identifiable, account shall be taken of all relevant means that might reasonably be used by a third party to identify such individual or legal entity. However, data which is taken from sources accessible to the public and which remains accessible according to legislation is not considered confidential. The same applies when express authorization from the provider of statistical information is given.

The following confidentiality principles are defined in article 16 of the law of 10 July 2011 on the organization of the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies.

When the fulfilment of its remit or the statistical aims sought require the use of data from identifiable statistical units, this data is processed by respecting the fundamental rights and liberties of the concerned individuals or legal entities. Only the people responsible for drawing up these statistics have access to this data. As soon as the identification of the statistical units and in particular of individuals is no longer necessary in the statistical production process, the data will be made anonymous.

For scientific purposes, STATEC may grant access to confidential data on its premises. The admissibility of the request for and the authorization of access  to the confidential data for scientific purposes are  subject to the assessment of the merits and the scientific interest of the research projects for which the authorization is requested, and also to the assessment of the scientific qualification of the applicant(s). The terms and conditions of access are determined by STATEC. The studies and results of the research that are likely to be published or disseminated are checked by STATEC to avoid the disclosure of confidential data.

Information that can be individualized cannot, under any circumstances, be disclosed.

The civil servants and those persons responsible for collecting the information or cooperating with the statistical work are personally responsible for strictly complying with the provisions above; Article 458 of the Criminal Code is applicable to them, without prejudice to any disciplinary sanctions.

The provisions of this article apply by analogy to other organizations that form part of the national statistical system.

In addition, the ESS confidentiality rules are applied.

There is no official national release calendar for this indicator.

see 8.1

The release days are the days data are transmitted to Eurostat. According to the principle of independence, data is released to all users at the same time.

There is a quarterly transmission to Eurostat according to the delays of transmission foreseen in the STS-Regulation.

There is no news release

There is no national publication

There is no online database, but historical figures are available on request.

There is no microdata access

Data is sent in SDMX-ML format to Eurostat

There are no national methodological documents available except STS variable definitions. Statec uses the methodology published in the STS manual.

There is no document on quality management available.

There is no specific quality management concerning this indicator.

see 11.1

The Services Producer Price Indices (SPPI) cover national and European user’s needs. The SPPI are required in the framework of Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2019 on European business statistics, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics.

Within STATEC, the national accounts use SPPI indices to deflate parts of the quarterly gross domestic product (GDP). In the future, SPPIs will be used in the ISP production process. Externally, the users are institutions like government departments, ECB, national central bank, international organizations like OECD and IMF.

Actors from the social sector like employers' organizations, trade unions and lobby groups may also use SPPI. As well as companies may be interested in SPPI to assess their own situation against the market in general. Further, researchers and students are potential users of the indicators.

There is no further information on the relevance of this indicator for users.

see 12.1

The SPPI in Luxembourg covers following activities (NACE rev2 codes):

H49, H51, H52, H53, J61, J62, J63, M69, M702, M71, M73, N78, N80, N81

There are around 100 enterprises in the sample. There are more than 900 prices that enter the price index.

There are no first estimates, but all the results can be revised if corrected or additional data arrives after the deadline for the first release. Normally, the results are definitive three months after the first release. An assessment of bias or sample error is not available.

not available

Non-response rates are in general quite low (around 1%).

Timeliness and punctuality according to the STS regulation

see 14.1

There is no measurement of the impact of differences in applied statistical concepts.

see 15.1

The producer price statistics in services are very specific. Therefore, comparisons with other statistical products such as consumer prices concerning methodology, concepts or results are not straightforward. 

No formal comparisons were made with the main complementary statistics.

The unit in charge of this indicator tries to achieve a high level of coherence within the given data set (e.g. sub-aggregates / aggregates, etc.)

Cost for NSI: 1500 hours/year

Burden for respondents: 250 hours/year

In the field of STS, Statec has no official release or revision calendar. Data dissemination depends on the deadlines foreseen in the STS regulation. Revisions are made each time when newer, completed or corrected figures are available. The revised results are used for national releases as well as for the data transmission to Eurostat. Users are only informed about the reasons of non-scheduled revisions if the revisions are considered to be important.
Different versions of historical data are not stored, only the last available version is saved. Nevertheless, LU plans to introduce the storage of the different versions of released data, but this project is depending on the availability of resources.
The base year remains unchanged for five years as stated in the STS regulation. After changing the base year according to the STS regulation, LU publishes results according to the new base year = 100 which is indicated in the publications. STS statistics are confronted with quarterly national accounts and, if necessary, corrected.

In the field of STS, and as said in 17.1., revisions are made each time when newer, completed or corrected figures for the different variables are available. There is no official revision calendar or regular process. The data and level of revisions depend on the data available. It is impossible to quantify the expected average size of revisions, for the same reason, users cannot be informed in advance of major revisions.

The first releases (two or three) of service producer prices for businesses, total output price index data are estimates. The reason is that complete raw data, based on administrative files, is only available after at least three months. That means that the first estimate is normally revised at least two or three times before becoming definitive.

Calculations (2018-2022) based on vintage figures transmitted by EUROSTAT to STATEC:

STATEC uses a statistical questionnaire for collecting SPPI data. It is sent out quarterly to the units of the sample by e-mail which in most cases return the questionnaire by e-mail. Some questionnaires are encrypted to guarantee the confidentiality of the data exchange. There is no standard questionnaire as the activity and prices survey largely differ from one unit/activity to the other.

Raw data are provided quarterly by survey. It is transmitted to Statec by e-mail.

In the case of the producer price index in services, there is no utilisation of administrative data.

quarterly survey on producer prices in services

Collection by Excel questionnaire, replies by e-mail, or list prices on the internet

Data is checked before the electronic processing (completeness, logical errors, large deviations from the normal level, etc)

A chained Laspeyres type price index is used, with weights from reference year 2015. The weights correspond to the part of total turnover of the unit representing the kind of service(s) monitored by the continuous surveys. At the elementary level, the geometric mean is performed (Jevons price index). If prices are temporarily missing due to non-response, the price form the preceding period is carried over.

There is no other adjustment.

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