Study Into Real GDP

Details

Economy

Monday, 14 May 2012 02:30

By Everton Barnes

Antigua and Barbuda is among Caribbean states participating in a study comparing the movement of prices for a basket of local goods to see how the prices compare across other countries and other regions of the world.

The study is being conducted under the World Bank-funded International Comparison Programme (ICP) and is co-ordinated by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). The programme is call IPC-Round 2011, which designates the base year for the study.

A consultant attached to the programme is in Antigua to work along with technicians in the government’s Statistics Division in a real-life workshop setting, helping them to understand the modalities of conducting the exercise.

The consultant – Hew Gough – said the exercise will use the information extracted for the Consumer Price Index and to see how these prices compare across nations after the currency conversions have been made.

“The CPI measures trends in prices, but it does not measure price levels. We want a more spatial index for a comparable basket of goods across countries,” he said.

On its website, the World Bank describes IPC as a worldwide statistical partnership to collect comparative date and compile detailed expenditure values of countries’ Gross Domestic Products (GDP), and to estimate the Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs) of the world’s economies. Using PPPs instead of market exchange rates to convert currencies makes it possible to compare the output of economies and the welfare of their inhabitants in real terms (that is, controlling for differences in price levels).

Gough said it the first time the countries of ECLAC are participating in the programme that seeks to determine the "real GDP" and standard of living for countries of the region. He is assigned in Antigua for one week.

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