Event: The Future of Price Statistics - Wednesday 30th at 9am EST

Join us live online and in-person this Wednesday at 9am in DC for “The Future of Price Statistics: Innovations in Data, Technology and Methods”

World leaders have committed to 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to achieve 3 extraordinary things over the next 15 years: end extreme poverty; fight inequality and injustice; and tackle climate change, with a pledge to leave no one behind. To achieve these goals, data of higher quality, reliability, frequency and openness are needed.
 
Price data play a central role in the statistics needed to measure and inform the SDGs and development policies in general:
 

• Policy-makers and economists need good measures of prices to assess progress in developed and developing countries.
• Consumer price indices are key macroeconomic indicators used to measure inflation and price changes overtime.
• Poverty analysts require accurate and timely consumer price data to ensure that poverty lines are adjusted for actual changes in the cost of living of poor people.
• Key macro- and micro-applications further require price data across space and sub-national price statistics are also essential for generating accurate spatial measures of poverty.
• Purchasing power parity estimates are essential for accurate estimates of volume measures of economic activity and for comparing standards of living across countries.

 
The extensive demand for reliable, frequent and open price data, combined with the limited availability of such data, has prompted the search for alternative ways to collect and disseminate price data through leveraging innovations in technology, new data sources and methods.
 
This half-day seminar is organized in the wake of the September 2015 United Nations General Assembly that saw the historic ratification of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the World Bank commitment to increase the availability and use of high-quality, timely and reliable price data, and boost capacity in developing countries to do the same over the next 15 years.
 
The seminar focuses on how technological advancements and new data sources and methods can be used to generate a fuller range of price statistics to better measure economic activity. Seminar participants include national statistical offices, private sector, international institutions, and academia.
 
Join us for this lively discussion on the challenges and opportunities for leveraging the global data revolution to guide the future of price statistics!