Estimating Food Price Inflation from Partial Surveys

The traditional consumer price index is often produced at an aggregate level, using data from few, highly urbanized, areas. As such, it poorly describes price trends in rural or poverty-stricken areas, where large populations may reside in fragile...

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Main Author: Andree, Bo Pieter Johannes
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/185851639662039407/Estimating-Food-Price-Inflation-from-Partial-Surveys
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36778
id okr-10986-36778
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-367782021-12-24T05:10:39Z Estimating Food Price Inflation from Partial Surveys Andree, Bo Pieter Johannes INFLATION FOOD PRICES FOOD SECURITY FINANCIAL STABILITY MACHINE LEARNING The traditional consumer price index is often produced at an aggregate level, using data from few, highly urbanized, areas. As such, it poorly describes price trends in rural or poverty-stricken areas, where large populations may reside in fragile situations. Traditional price data collection also follows a deliberate sampling and measurement process that is not well suited for monitoring during crisis situations, when price stability may deteriorate rapidly. To gain real-time insights beyond what can be formally measured by traditional methods, this paper develops a machine-learning approach for imputation of ongoing subnational price surveys. The aim is to monitor inflation at the market level, relying only on incomplete and intermittent survey data. The capabilities are highlighted using World Food Programme surveys in 25 fragile and conflict-affected countries where real-time monthly food price data are not publicly available from official sources. The results are made available as a data set that covers more than 1200 markets and 43 food types. The local statistics provide a new granular view on important inflation events, including the World Food Price Crisis of 2007–08 and the surge in global inflation following the 2020 pandemic. The paper finds that imputations often achieve accuracy similar to direct measurement of prices. The estimates may provide new opportunities to investigate local price dynamics in markets where prices are sensitive to localized shocks and traditional data are not available. 2021-12-23T14:56:02Z 2021-12-23T14:56:02Z 2021-12 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/185851639662039407/Estimating-Food-Price-Inflation-from-Partial-Surveys http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36778 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9886 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic INFLATION
FOOD PRICES
FOOD SECURITY
FINANCIAL STABILITY
MACHINE LEARNING
spellingShingle INFLATION
FOOD PRICES
FOOD SECURITY
FINANCIAL STABILITY
MACHINE LEARNING
Andree, Bo Pieter Johannes
Estimating Food Price Inflation from Partial Surveys
relation Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9886
description The traditional consumer price index is often produced at an aggregate level, using data from few, highly urbanized, areas. As such, it poorly describes price trends in rural or poverty-stricken areas, where large populations may reside in fragile situations. Traditional price data collection also follows a deliberate sampling and measurement process that is not well suited for monitoring during crisis situations, when price stability may deteriorate rapidly. To gain real-time insights beyond what can be formally measured by traditional methods, this paper develops a machine-learning approach for imputation of ongoing subnational price surveys. The aim is to monitor inflation at the market level, relying only on incomplete and intermittent survey data. The capabilities are highlighted using World Food Programme surveys in 25 fragile and conflict-affected countries where real-time monthly food price data are not publicly available from official sources. The results are made available as a data set that covers more than 1200 markets and 43 food types. The local statistics provide a new granular view on important inflation events, including the World Food Price Crisis of 2007–08 and the surge in global inflation following the 2020 pandemic. The paper finds that imputations often achieve accuracy similar to direct measurement of prices. The estimates may provide new opportunities to investigate local price dynamics in markets where prices are sensitive to localized shocks and traditional data are not available.
format Working Paper
author Andree, Bo Pieter Johannes
author_facet Andree, Bo Pieter Johannes
author_sort Andree, Bo Pieter Johannes
title Estimating Food Price Inflation from Partial Surveys
title_short Estimating Food Price Inflation from Partial Surveys
title_full Estimating Food Price Inflation from Partial Surveys
title_fullStr Estimating Food Price Inflation from Partial Surveys
title_full_unstemmed Estimating Food Price Inflation from Partial Surveys
title_sort estimating food price inflation from partial surveys
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2021
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/185851639662039407/Estimating-Food-Price-Inflation-from-Partial-Surveys
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36778
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