Documentation
The documentation summarises the characteristics of the Consumer Prices data set and provides country-specific information on the underlying indicators, sources and length of the series.
Consumer prices
About
The consumer price index data set contains long series that track the overall change in the prices of goods and services purchased by households. Consumer price indices are a key macroeconomic indicator, for instance to measure inflation and assess purchasing power over time.
The data set includes monthly and annual time series for more than 60 countries. Some annual series go back to the mid-19th century, or earlier for a few countries. The average length of the monthly series is more than 60 years. The BIS has constructed long consumer price indices, by joining the series available for consecutive periods.
Consumer price indices are commonly used as a deflator for other economic series. The series have been used, in particular, for the calculation of the real effective exchange rate and real residential property price series published by the BIS.
Methodology
FAQs
The data set is updated once a month, usually in the last week of each month. The publication date and the latest reference period are shown in the Statistics release calendar.
Consumer price indices are predominantly compiled by national statistical offices.
The data set contains the national CPI (and not the harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP)) for all countries. For more details, please refer to Long series on consumer prices - data documentation to the BIS statistics.
This is a research data set. The year-on-year changes are calculated from the index data. Therefore, they can differ from the official statistics due to rounding effects.