Industrial Product Price Index (IPPI)

Detailed information for July 2024

The Industrial Product Price Index (IPPI) measures price changes for major commodities sold by manufacturers operating in Canada.

Data release - August 21, 2024

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy

Description

The Industrial Product Price Index (IPPI) measures price changes for major commodities sold by manufacturers operating in Canada. The prices collected are for goods sold at the factory gate. As a result, the prices covered by the IPPI refer not to what a purchaser pays, but to what the producer receives. They exclude all indirect taxes, such as sales taxes and tariffs as this money does not go to the factors of production (i.e. labour, capital, or profit). They also exclude any transportation service performed by a common carrier beyond the factory gate and any distribution services performed by the retail or wholesale trade industries.

In the 1920's the Dominion Bureau of Statistics (now Statistics Canada) began to cover systematically, the change in wholesale prices and in the output of Canadian manufacturing industries. Some of their output had been included in the General Wholesale Index (GWI), but in a very incomplete manner. After the Second World War, the need to create a set of national accounts to track the economy led to the creation of the Industry Selling Price Index (ISPI). The first ISPI series was published on a 1956 base and only a limited number of industries were covered in the beginning. Over the next twenty years, the remaining industries were added to the selling price index series. In the early 1980's, the IPPI replaced the ISPI and now covered commodities, as well as the output of the manufacturing industries.

The IPPI series is considered a high-quality, high-value indicator for several reasons, the most important being its relevance, namely what the IPPI measures. The index measures the movement in prices for manufactured goods produced in Canada, destined for domestic or export consumption. This translates to a ready measure of economic performance of the Canadian manufacturing sector. In addition, the IPPI series supports the Canadian System of Macro-Economic Accounts (CSMA), where it is used in the calculation of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Together, they serve as important indicators of the health of the economy.

The IPPI series is of value in analytical studies of price formation and behaviour and it is frequently used in the process of contract escalation and often serves as a representative input into other price index series. At times, its contribution is significant if not indirect, as in the case of trade issues or disputes.

Elemental price indexes are calculated for groups of the North American Product Classification System (NAPCS) 2017v2. The level of detail available to the public is subject to strict controls on the statistical quality of the data, as well as ensuring the confidentiality of respondents.

Reference period: The time period for which the IPPI equals 100; currently this is January 2020.

Collection period: For most products included in the IPPI, the collection process occurs over a three-week period starting during the third week of the reference month.

Subjects

• Industrial product price indexes
• Prices and price indexes

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population of the IPPI consists of those manufacturing establishments residing and producing in Canada.

The geographical universe for the IPPI is all of Canada, while the commodity universe is all industrial goods manufactured in Canada and the industry universe corresponds to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Finally, the price universe is the producer price, which is the price collected for goods sold at the factory gate, excluding taxes, tariffs, transportation costs, etc.

Instrument design

Price data are collected using an electronic questionnaire (EQ) which contains technical descriptions or specifications for the selected products, originally supplied by the respondent (e.g. ready-mix concrete, 20 MPa, cold mix without heating charge or additives). In addition to the commodity description, the questionnaire outlines the terms of sale for which the price applies (e.g. price per cubic metre delivered to local contractor, all taxes extra, f.o.b. local area, Can$).

Sampling

This is a sample survey.

The sampling frame for the IPPI is based on the 2016 Annual Survey of Manufacturers and Logging (ASML). The most common survey unit is the "establishment" which refers to the smallest unit of an organization that can provide the basic data required for industry statistics, most commonly an individual plant or factory.

Sampling for any directly surveyed elemental index is usually done by a formal probability sampling procedure. Important producers are "must take" respondents. A random selection is taken from the smaller producers. These samples are redrawn on a regular cycle as dictated by changes in the market. A directly surveyed elemental index is usually supported by 3 to 15 price quotes. An index may be derived from as few as 3 quotes or as many as 30 quotes. Each month, about 3,600 price quotes, from about 1,100 producers, are used in the calculation of the IPPI.

Sampling for any directly surveyed elemental index is usually done by selecting a range of specific price quotations to represent purchases of the commodity as a whole. Usually the individual price quotations are equally weighted within a company, unless there is good data from which to weight individual varieties.

The entire survey sample is usually reviewed in total once every 5 years. In the interim, resampling occurs primarily for commodity groups subject to relatively rapid development in firm structure or product development.

About 645 of the 762 groups of the North American Product Classification System (NAPCS) in the manufacturing sector are accommodated by direct survey. The price movement for the other NAPCS groups is estimated indirectly from either directly priced NAPCS or through borrowing price movements from other price series.

Data sources

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents and derived from other Statistics Canada surveys.

The prices of most of the commodities surveyed for the IPPI are collected monthly, usually over a three-week period.

The price information collected relates to the month in question.

Commodity specialists obtain, from each of the sampled respondents, price observations for each of the products selected. To do this, they discuss with each respondent the different varieties of products that they sell, and the different terms of sale under which they sell them. They then draw up a detailed description of the physical variety sold. The terms of sale that apply may also be specified for each price quotation. In most cases, the specific quotation chosen pertains to the sale of a major product line to a major type of customer. However, if the same manufacturer is being asked for more than one quotation on the same product line, a procedure is followed which gives some chance of secondary lines or secondary markets being included.

During the preliminary contact with respondents, the importance of obtaining prices for actual transactions is stressed. If a company posts regular list prices from which discounts are typically applied, then the prices collected should reflect these discounts, whether they vary continuously with each sale or whether there are standard rates of discount depending on the class of customer, size of order or so on. In the subsequent validation of the regularly supplied price quotations, one of the most important concerns is that the prices quoted are what actually prevail in the market. For this reason it is important to ensure that the contact in each manufacturing company is someone who can supply that information.

Once there is agreement on which price information is to be supplied, the price quotations are collected by means of an electronic questionnaire. This is sent to each respondent who gives the price in effect for the reference month.

In cases where there are no prices collected due to either an insignificant level of production in Canada or a lack of respondent co-operation, proxy series are constructed. Proxy series may consist of several other reported series combined together, or use similar representative price indexes from another program or statistical agency.

Estimated percentage shares (by weight in the IPPI) of the collection methods used in the construction of the IPPI:

Electronic reporting (90%)
Extraction of data from other sources (10%)

Software used:

Business Collection Portal (BCP)
Business Register System (BRS)
Electronic Questionnaire(EQ) v3.2
PPD - Generic Processing System
Cygnus Estimation System

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .

Error detection

In the day-to-day collection and processing of these indexes, emphasis is placed on the examination and evaluation of prices. Commodity specialists watch closely developments in the markets. They review the behaviour of the reported price changes, both to validate them directly and to ensure they are representative of the product price movement as a whole. Outliers and incorrect or suspicious prices are identified during the initial data processing and, if necessary, follow-ups are carried out with the respondents to ensure the appropriate information has been obtained.

Imputation

Despite existing rigorous collection processes, there are sometimes missing prices that need to be imputed.

For example, for a given month, prices may be missing because a data provider failed to report on time or because it was impossible to supply them (e.g., if a commodity is out of season). In these cases, parental imputation is utilized and the price movement is imputed by a weighted average of existing survey data collected from the respondents that did provide prices.

Occasionally, manual imputations are made by commodity specialists for handling quality changes and product replacements. In those cases, the commodity specialist will often seek out additional information and make an evaluation of the change in conjunction with the respondent.

Beginning in 2020, the IPPI started releasing flash releases mid-month. These are calculated using all available data at the time. Because petroleum data is unavailable by mid-month, it is estimated using ARIMA models and later revised with respondent data for the main release.

Additionally, price indexes remain subject to revision for six months after publication of a given month's data. This is to accommodate late reports, corrections and some price quotations that are supplied quarterly or semi-annually.

Estimation

Weights
The composite indexes are weighted averages of the elemental indexes.

For the IPPI, commodity and industry weights are derived from a combination of the 2016 Supply and Use Tables that closely reflect actual economic transactions by industry and the sales of goods manufactured by companies as reported for the 2016 ASML. .

Company/product weights within a commodity index can be changed periodically in order to reflect important changes in production patterns. The entire weighting scheme for the IPPI is generally revised every 5 years. In the future, we will explore increasing the frequency to every two years.

The current weight base is 2016.

Indexes

Two sets of price indexes for industrial products are produced. The first set of indexes is grouped by commodities, weighted by their sales of goods manufactured in 2016, and classified according to the NAPCS 2017v2.

The second set of indexes covers the total commodity output of individual industries. These reflect the sales of goods manufactured in 2016 in each industry. The industry indexes are classified according to the NAICS 2017v3, aggregated to the level required for the input-output tables and the measurement of Gross Domestic Product.

The current time base is January 2020=100.

Quality evaluation

The quality of this index is maintained through the expertise of the commodity specialists and the analysts who develop a thorough knowledge of the domain, including ongoing market intelligence and outside contacts for particular industries. Much time and effort is devoted to detecting and following up unusual fluctuations over time in the pricing patterns of commodities. Prior to dissemination, the price indexes are analyzed and historic trends reviewed.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects which could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

Collected data are converted to price indexes and data are released as such, so that it is not possible to identify the suppliers of raw prices.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

With each release, data for the previous six months may have been revised. The indexes are not seasonally adjusted. Exceptions to this rule are announced.

Data accuracy

The IPPI attempts to express, in a single number, price changes that involve a range of commodities. There is no obvious, let alone absolute, way of perceiving what a composite price movement really is. For the IPPI, the fixed quantities of the commodities are proportional to the sales made by manufacturing establishments in Canada in the basket reference period, which is 2016. Consequently, considerations about the quality of the IPPI relate to these concepts of composite price movements.

The statistical accuracy of this index depends on price and shipment value data. Price data are obtained from a sample survey and administrative sources. Shipment value data mainly rests on other sample surveys, such as the ASML. Therefore, these data are subject to their own errors.

In addition to sampling errors, producer price indexes are also subject to errors in price collection and editing. This is particularly true when quality change occurs in the sample with regard to the estimation of pure price change. To estimate pure price change over time, the prices to be directly compared through time ought to refer to identical commodities sold by identical establishments under identical conditions of sale. When this is not practical, prices must undergo adjustments for quality differences, which can prove to be a complicated process to implement. Among the thousands of prices that are compared every month to those of the preceding month, some may not fully satisfy these requirements. The total distortion from this source of error is not thought to be as significant at higher levels of IPPI aggregation.

Though the IPPI uses a sample survey methodology to obtain the necessary information, confidence intervals are not currently estimated, due to the longitudinal nature of price index series. Indexes for higher and lower levels of aggregation are considered to be statistically reliable.