The methodological innovations, main results and findings from the 2011 round of the International Comparison Program (in English)

Abstract

The International Comparison Program (ICP) is a worldwide statistical initiative designed to estimate purchasing power parities (PPPs) that can be used as currency converters to compare the performance of economies around the world. The ICP conducts surveys every six years to collect price and expenditure data for all goods and services that make up the gross domestic product (GPD) in economies worldwide in order to calculate the PPPs. PPPs enable levels of economic activity in different countries to be compared thereby providing in-depth views of the distribution of resources worldwide. The 2011 round of the ICP was leveraged on the successful outcome of the 2005 round that included 146 economies. The 2011 round introduced various methodological improvements, mainly in linking the regions and aggregating results. The summary report and results from the 2011 round were released in April 2014, followed by more detailed results in June 2014. A comprehensive report was published in September 2014. The April release provided PPPs, price level indices, and real expenditures for the GDP and major aggregates for 199 economies. The final report in September provided a more in-depth analysis of volume and per capita indices. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the major methodological innovations that were implemented in ICP 2011, and the main results and findings of the round.