[NO1] Statistics Norway

Division for price statistics, Department for economic statistics

Akersveien 26, 0177 Oslo

2 February 2026

2 February 2026

2 February 2026

See concept 3.1 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

1.        Statistics Norway in brief

Statistics Norway has overall responsibility for official statistics in Norway and carries out extensive research and analysis activities. New statistics and analyses are published daily on ssb.no (English version). Statistics Norway reports to the Ministry of Finance and the legal authority is the Statistics Act of 2019 and the regulations related to the statistics act of 2020.

Statistics Norway is a professionally autonomous organization with a mandate to determine what it publishes, as well as when and how the publishing takes place. Statistics Norway produces statistics on: population and living conditions, resources and the environment, the economy and national accounts, municipal, county authority and central government activities. About 850 employees in the cities of Oslo and Kongsvinger play a role in ensuring that public discussion and the governing of society are based on the most accurate information and facts. We also have around 160 interviewers spread throughout Norway.

2.        National statistical organization

Statistics Norway is divided into four subject-matter departments and four supporting departments. Below the level of the division, there is no formal organizational structure, but an informal sub-division into functionally defined teams has gradually developed. The PPP team belongs to the Department for economic statistics, Division for price statistics. The Division for national accounts was transferred to the same department as the division for price statistics in 2019. In addition to PPP, the Division for price statistics produces the national CPI, HICP, PPI, SPPI and PIF and a rental market survey. 

Figure 1: Organization chart, Statistics Norway

The number of employees in the price statistics unit is now 19. The PPP work in Norway is regulated by the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement under EU regulation (EC) No 1445/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2007. The daily work is based upon the directions and recommendations given in the Eurostat-OECD Methodological Manual on Purchasing Power Parities.

3.        Organizational relations with the CPI and national accounts

The location of PPP and CPI teams within the same unit gives possibilities for utilization of common registers, transaction data, price data, experience and expertise. The team have close cooperation with the PPP contact in the Division for national accounts.

4.        Resource allocation

In earlier years, the price collection has been carried out by the PPP team within the price statistics unit. From autumn 2015 the PPP team reorganized the price collection work. The PPP team continues to collaborate with the Division for social surveys which belongs to the Department for Methodology and Data Collection. Training and supervision is carried out by the PPP team. Data entry, as well as the subsequent control and validation tasks is carried out by two officers.

For the ECP construction survey, most of the work is outsourced to two external contractors. The Hospital services survey is done entirely by the Norwegian Directorate of Health.

In addition, data for the PPP exercise is collected from Division for National Accounts (expenditure weights, housing data, VAT and tips) and from Division for Income and Wage Statistics (salary survey). However, the overall coordinating responsibility for the provision of these surveys and auxiliary data lies with the Division for Price Statistics.

The PPP team also undertakes certain tasks not considered day-to-day PPP routine, like technical or methodological development.

Publishing articles and dealing with requests from the public are also tasks of the PPP team.

5. How the drafting of the PPP inventory is organized

Table 1: Organization of the drafting of the PPP inventory

The PPP team is overall responsible for drafting the PPP inventory. For the chapters 2.2, 3.1 and 3.2, the PPP team invites experts from other divisions in Statistics Norway to contribute to the drafting. For chapter 4.2, external contractors are consulted.

See concept 3.2 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 3.3 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 3.4 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 3.5 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 3.6 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

The whole country.

See concept 3.8 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

Not applicable, because PPPs (Purchasing power parities) are primarily spatial indicators.

See concept 4 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 5 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 6.1 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 6.2 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

Statistics Norway has agreed to the general terms of data access applicable in the ECP. These ECP guidelines, which have been discussed and adopted by the PPP Working Group, currently govern the access to ECP input data. It seems to us, however, that those who apply for access to unpublished data are often not aware of the limitations of this data material, and that the purpose for which it has been collected is a very specific one. Therefore, the following paragraphs outline our basic view on input data access, and some ideas about how we feel the ECP guidelines should be applied to the different types of ECP input data.

The underlying premise of data access and confidentiality at Statistics Norway is that it should under no circumstances be possible to identify the statistical unit (defined as any legal entity) in the data. However, consumer prices are considered readily available public information and, as such, not subject to this restriction.

This does not mean that Statistics Norway grants access to consumer price data at the micro level. Our policy is that access to unpublished data can be granted to third parties upon application, with limitations to be specified in each concrete case. Access may be granted for a limited time only, and the applicant will have to confirm explicitly, at the end of the access period, that the data has been destroyed. In the case of users who need data for research purposes, Statistics Norway has a standard policy and all applications for data access undergo evaluation by the Section for access to microdata. As of the present no basic data has been shared from the PPP surveys.

Subcontractors working with the Construction survey data have agreed to guarantee data confidentiality for Norwegian data as well as any data connected to other countries participation in the ECP program.

1. Access to ECP price data

In the consumer goods surveys, the price data collected is submitted to Eurostat in an anonymous form, that is, there should be no reference to the shop or the company from which each concrete price quotation has been collected. We generally approve of these prices being made available to applicants for research purposes but maintain a very restrictive attitude with regards to the publishing of both individual prices, item averages and, in many cases, data at basic heading level.

In the rents survey, a macro approach is used. This means that the input data for the PPP calculation is itself an average (unit) price for each of the relatively broad aggregates outlined in the survey questionnaire. We know that this approach may produce results that deviate from what one would have expected in a “pure” survey of rentals, and that it has been adopted in the ECP chiefly because it ensures a high degree of consistency with NA. We have no problems with the access to this data by ECP participants, but potential external applicants should consider carefully if this data is really what they are after.

In the salary survey, the input data (salaries and weights) are provided by division for labour and wage statistics under the precondition that the figures are used exclusively as input into the calculation of PPPs. Those interested in a European or global comparison of public sector salary levels can probably find more suitable data sources than the ECP.

For the equipment goods survey, the same principle applies as in the case of the consumer goods surveys. This means that individual price quotations are submitted to Eurostat and, in principle, can be made accessible to third parties if they cannot be tied to one company. However, for a relatively small economy like Norway’s, many of the investment goods items in our product sample are available from one company only.

In the hospital services survey, the input data is provided by the Norwegian Directorate of Health. Like all other surveys, figures are used exclusively as input into the calculation of PPPs. 

The construction survey data is supplied by our external contractors under the assumption that it is for input use in the PPP exercise only (quasi-prices). This data should preferably not be disclosed to third persons, except ECP participants.

2. Access to ECP weights and auxiliary data

The ECP expenditure weights (“table 24”) are compiled for three years at a time, t-1, t and t+1. The table is compiled based on data from national accounts extracted in the summer or early autumn of year t+2. The expenditure data, especially at lower levels of aggregation, is frequently based on preliminary estimates or old expenditure structures. It is the best data available at the time that is required for the PPP calculation. Any other use of this material should be discouraged.

The same holds for NA-based, auxiliary data like the VAT rates and tips.

See 7.1.

The PPP Team decide a date for the next publication (normally one or two days after Eurostat release of figures) and add it to the Statistics Norway release calendar well in advance (usually around three months prior to the publication).

The Statistics Norway release calendar is available for everyone at Upcoming releases and publications – SSB

All users are given access to the published data at the same time. 

See concept 9 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

In June each year, we publish an article on the price levels of goods and services for household consumption, based on the June update of the Eurobase. The analytical categories covered could be food and non-alcoholic beverages, alcoholic beverages and tobacco, clothing, footwear, energy, furniture, household appliances, personal transport equipment, transport services, communication and consumer electronics, as well as total household final consumption expenditure (HFCE). In December, we publish a "full" article based on the final figures for the previous year published by Eurostat.

Other publications

Occasional PPP-related articles are published in various Statistics Norway publications. In the past, some of these have been related to ICP results, food prices in Europe, and price level adjustment of salaries. Just like our regular publications, these articles give rise to some media coverage and interest from researchers, policy makers and the general public.

Our current policy is to republish, in our own dissemination database, selected figures from Eurostat immediately after these have been released in the Eurostat database. We also follow up on Eurostat’s news releases with specific articles at our website's PPP section. Articles are published in Norwegian and tables are published in English. Credit is given to the source and all articles are linked to the corresponding Eurostat publication.

The dissemination database is updated twice a year, in June and December, with the latest Eurostat data for all analytical categories. We republish PPPs, PLIs, real expenditures, real expenditures per capita and volume indices per capita. The time series published by Statistics Norway currently go back to 1995.

Our articles focus on the main indicators, i.e. the volume indices for GDP and actual individual consumption (AIC), as well as price level indices for AIC and HFCE.

See concept 10.4 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

Not applicable

The latest version of the "EUROSTAT-OECD Methodological manual on purchasing power parities" is available online. 

See concept 10.7 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

All data provided undergo a detailed multilateral validation process, described in detail in the PPP Manual (see 10.6 and 10.7).

At European level, the PPP Regulation requires Eurostat to assess the PPP processes of each EU Member State at least once every six years and to publish the results of these assessments on the Eurostat website. The outcome of these assessments are released on Eurostat's website.

See concept 12.1 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 12.2 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

All indicators are calculated and published.

See concept 13.1 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 13.2 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 13.3 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 14.1 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 14.2 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 15.1 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 15.2 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 15.3 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

Not applicable

Burden on respondents is minimal for the PPP data collection, as we only approach respondents by email or phone (i.e. no questionnaire sent out). The majority of the data collection is use of transaction data/scanner data (aquired by the CPI Team for the production of the Norwegian CPI/HICP), register/administrative data and the use of APIs and/or internet. For the Eurostat/OECD specific rents survey, a couple of estate agents are involved in providing data and information.  

Not publishable.

See concept 17.1 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

Not applicable, cf. 17.1.

See concept 18.1 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 18.2 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 18.3 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 18.4 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 18.5 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

See concept 18.6 of the Eurostat metadata file prc_ppp_esms.

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