[open-economics] open-economics Digest, Vol 30, Issue 4

Fri Jun 7 10:35:51 UTC 2013

Hi all,

Reinhard and Rogoff have all the data used for their book "This time is
different" online. Amongst other things, they have a host of inflation
indices for many countries:

http://www.reinhartandrogoff.com/data/browse-by-topic/topics/2/

See if that helps.

Best
Florian

P.S.: If you are lucky enough to discover a mistake in the excel sheet,
write a paper and get famous! :-)

On 7 June 2013 10:49, <open-economics-request at lists.okfn.org> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Re: open-economics Digest, Vol 30, Issue 3 (Ulrich Atz)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2013 10:42:22 +0100
> From: Ulrich Atz <ulrich.atz at theodi.org>
> Subject: Re: [open-economics] open-economics Digest, Vol 30, Issue 3
> To: open-economics at lists.okfn.org
> Message-ID:
>         <
> CAHTkVuuW3tj6LfFLBC7FKTgr+E68CE3DXUDaCFjr7m09ik2+dQ at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Tryggvi, apologies for potentially missing something, but I'd like to help.
>
> Can you share the data? I have an extensive background in econometrics.
>
> Ulrich
>
>
>
> On 7 June 2013 10:13, <open-economics-request at lists.okfn.org> wrote:
>
> > Send open-economics mailing list submissions to
> >         open-economics at lists.okfn.org
> >
> > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> >         http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-economics
> > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> >         open-economics-request at lists.okfn.org
> >
> > You can reach the person managing the list at
> >         open-economics-owner at lists.okfn.org
> >
> > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> > than "Re: Contents of open-economics digest..."
> >
> >
> > Today's Topics:
> >
> >    1. Financial comparisons (Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson)
> >    2. Re: Financial comparisons (Guo Xu)
> >    3. Re: Financial comparisons (Niels Erik Kaaber Rasmussen)
> >    4. Re: Financial comparisons (Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson)
> >    5. Re: Financial comparisons (Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson)
> >    6. Re: Financial comparisons (Niels Erik Kaaber Rasmussen)
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 15:39:57 +0000
> > From: Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson <tryggvi.bjorgvinsson at okfn.org>
> > Subject: [open-economics] Financial comparisons
> > To: open-economics at lists.okfn.org,      OpenSpending Discussion List
> >         <openspending at lists.okfn.org>
> > Message-ID: <51B0AD4D.40307 at okfn.org>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >
> > Hi all and sorry for crossposting,
> >
> > I've been working on "amount normalisation" for OpenSpending to allow us
> > to do historical comparisons more accurately using real value or look at
> > amounts at the current nominal value (I hope I'm using the correct
> terms).
> >
> > I decided to use consumer price indexes and I've collected the data from
> > the World Bank. The problem with that data is that many years are
> > missing for some countries (either the CPI wasn't being collected, isn't
> > being collected any more or has never been collected).
> >
> > Since I don't know how this is usually done I wanted to ask you what you
> > think would be the best approach:
> >
> > 1. Use the index that's nearest in time (this won't be accurate though)
> > 2. Interplolate and guess what the index is (not accurate either since
> > it's not linear)
> > 3. Just say that we can't do historical comparisons nor compute the
> > real/nominal value
> > 4. Something else
> >
> > --
> >
> > Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson
> >
> > Technical Lead, OpenSpending
> >
> > The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org>
> >
> > /Empowering through Open Knowledge/
> >
> > http://okfn.org/ | @okfn <http://twitter.com/OKFN> | OKF on Facebook
> > <https://facebook.com/OKFNetwork> | Blog <http://blog.okfn.org/> |
> > Newsletter <http://okfn.org/about/newsletter>
> >
> > -------------- next part --------------
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> > >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2013 17:03:45 +0100
> > From: Guo Xu <digitalepourpre at gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [open-economics] Financial comparisons
> > To: Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson <tryggvi.bjorgvinsson at okfn.org>
> > Cc: "open-economics at lists.okfn.org" <open-economics at lists.okfn.org>,
> >         OpenSpending Discussion List <openspending at lists.okfn.org>
> > Message-ID:
> >         <
> > CACzVpz_MPGZhaT1i+yQ_jJMzd_v1oj0hO6Omusd6j0HmL5AfTg at mail.gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> >
> > Hi Tryggvi,
> >
> > How far do you want to go back?
> >
> > Calculating deflators is not trivial, particularly as baskets are
> > different and keep changing over time! The standard source for CPI is
> > from the Penn World Tables. This should give you data running back to
> > 1950.
> >
> > https://pwt.sas.upenn.edu/php_site/pwt_index.php
> >
> > The variables of interest to you will be the p* variables that give
> > the price levels.
> >
> > Guo
> >
> > On 6 June 2013 16:39, Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson
> > <tryggvi.bjorgvinsson at okfn.org> wrote:
> > > Hi all and sorry for crossposting,
> > >
> > > I've been working on "amount normalisation" for OpenSpending to allow
> us
> > to
> > > do historical comparisons more accurately using real value or look at
> > > amounts at the current nominal value (I hope I'm using the correct
> > terms).
> > >
> > > I decided to use consumer price indexes and I've collected the data
> from
> > the
> > > World Bank. The problem with that data is that many years are missing
> for
> > > some countries (either the CPI wasn't being collected, isn't being
> > collected
> > > any more or has never been collected).
> > >
> > > Since I don't know how this is usually done I wanted to ask you what
> you
> > > think would be the best approach:
> > >
> > > 1. Use the index that's nearest in time (this won't be accurate though)
> > > 2. Interplolate and guess what the index is (not accurate either since
> > it's
> > > not linear)
> > > 3. Just say that we can't do historical comparisons nor compute the
> > > real/nominal value
> > > 4. Something else
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson
> > >
> > > Technical Lead, OpenSpending
> > >
> > > The Open Knowledge Foundation
> > >
> > > Empowering through Open Knowledge
> > >
> > > http://okfn.org/ | @okfn | OKF on Facebook | Blog | Newsletter
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > open-economics mailing list
> > > open-economics at lists.okfn.org
> > > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-economics
> > > Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/open-economics
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 3
> > Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 21:14:15 +0200
> > From: Niels Erik Kaaber Rasmussen <niels at buhlrasmussen.eu>
> > Subject: Re: [open-economics] Financial comparisons
> > To: <open-economics at lists.okfn.org>
> > Message-ID: <23eae014457d9417e4f0a48a5300485a at epdb.eu>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
> >
> > Hi
> >
> > I did consider this problem while presenting historical budgets and
> > accounts for Danish municipalities (for charts see
> > http://kommune.politiken.dk/tabel.php?kid=101&&type=ud). Even for a 7
> > years period it's not fair to present the numbers in real values but how
> > to adjust?
> >
> > There are multiple official price-indexes all used by government in
> > different contexts: consumer-price index, a wage index, netto-prices, an
> > index for construction, for road constructions and so on. Parts of the
> > budgets are grouped in similar ways. Fx. construction expenses are
> > identifiable and these expenses could be adjusted using the
> > construction-price-index (same goes for salaries, road-construction
> > etc.). This could be a reasonable approach when focusing on a specific
> > expenditure post in a historic perspective. However to use different
> > price-indexes on different parts of the same budget is obviously
> > problematic because the relative size of each type of expenditure
> > changes over time.
> >
> > I choose to use a combined consumer-price and wage index to adjust the
> > historical data. This is not perfect but I found it better than using
> > multiple indexes for different parts of the budget and better than
> > presenting figures in real values.
> >
> > Best, Niels Erik
> > ---
> > http://www.buhlrasmussen.eu
> > (+45) 2680 9492
> >
> > On 2013-06-06 18:03, Guo Xu wrote:
> > > Hi Tryggvi,
> > >
> > > How far do you want to go back?
> > >
> > > Calculating deflators is not trivial, particularly as baskets are
> > > different and keep changing over time! The standard source for CPI is
> > > from the Penn World Tables. This should give you data running back to
> > > 1950.
> > >
> > > https://pwt.sas.upenn.edu/php_site/pwt_index.php
> > >
> > > The variables of interest to you will be the p* variables that give
> > > the price levels.
> > >
> > > Guo
> > >
> > > On 6 June 2013 16:39, Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson
> > > <tryggvi.bjorgvinsson at okfn.org> wrote:
> > >> Hi all and sorry for crossposting,
> > >>
> > >> I've been working on "amount normalisation" for OpenSpending to
> > >> allow us to
> > >> do historical comparisons more accurately using real value or look
> > >> at
> > >> amounts at the current nominal value (I hope I'm using the correct
> > >> terms).
> > >>
> > >> I decided to use consumer price indexes and I've collected the data
> > >> from the
> > >> World Bank. The problem with that data is that many years are
> > >> missing for
> > >> some countries (either the CPI wasn't being collected, isn't being
> > >> collected
> > >> any more or has never been collected).
> > >>
> > >> Since I don't know how this is usually done I wanted to ask you what
> > >> you
> > >> think would be the best approach:
> > >>
> > >> 1. Use the index that's nearest in time (this won't be accurate
> > >> though)
> > >> 2. Interplolate and guess what the index is (not accurate either
> > >> since it's
> > >> not linear)
> > >> 3. Just say that we can't do historical comparisons nor compute the
> > >> real/nominal value
> > >> 4. Something else
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >>
> > >> Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson
> > >>
> > >> Technical Lead, OpenSpending
> > >>
> > >> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> > >>
> > >> Empowering through Open Knowledge
> > >>
> > >> http://okfn.org/ | @okfn | OKF on Facebook | Blog | Newsletter
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> open-economics mailing list
> > >> open-economics at lists.okfn.org
> > >> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-economics
> > >> Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/open-economics
> > >>
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > open-economics mailing list
> > > open-economics at lists.okfn.org
> > > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-economics
> > > Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/open-economics
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 4
> > Date: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 08:33:40 +0000
> > From: Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson <tryggvi.bjorgvinsson at okfn.org>
> > Subject: Re: [open-economics] Financial comparisons
> > To: Guo Xu <digitalepourpre at gmail.com>
> > Cc: "open-economics at lists.okfn.org" <open-economics at lists.okfn.org>,
> >         OpenSpending Discussion List <openspending at lists.okfn.org>
> > Message-ID: <51B19AE4.6010708 at okfn.org>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >
> > Hi and thanks for the response,
> >
> > On fim 6.j?n 2013 16:03, Guo Xu wrote:
> > > How far do you want to go back?
> >
> > The more data I can get the better.
> >
> > > Calculating deflators is not trivial, particularly as baskets are
> > > different and keep changing over time! The standard source for CPI is
> > > from the Penn World Tables. This should give you data running back to
> > > 1950.
> > >
> > > https://pwt.sas.upenn.edu/php_site/pwt_index.php
> >
> > This is great. It goes further back for many countries than the World
> > Bank dataset but it stops at 2010. So I'll still run into the problem of
> > what to do for years when there is no data.
> >
> > --
> >
> > Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson
> >
> > Technical Lead, OpenSpending
> >
> > The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org>
> >
> > /Empowering through Open Knowledge/
> >
> > http://okfn.org/ | @okfn <http://twitter.com/OKFN> | OKF on Facebook
> > <https://facebook.com/OKFNetwork> | Blog <http://blog.okfn.org/> |
> > Newsletter <http://okfn.org/about/newsletter>
> >
> > -------------- next part --------------
> > An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> > URL: <
> >
> http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-economics/attachments/20130607/39c4d739/attachment-0001.htm
> > >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 5
> > Date: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 08:45:07 +0000
> > From: Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson <tryggvi.bjorgvinsson at okfn.org>
> > Subject: Re: [open-economics] Financial comparisons
> > To: open-economics at lists.okfn.org
> > Message-ID: <51B19D93.3010302 at okfn.org>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> >
> > Hi and thanks for the reply,
> >
> > On fim 6.j?n 2013 19:14, Niels Erik Kaaber Rasmussen wrote:
> > > There are multiple official price-indexes all used by government in
> > > different contexts: consumer-price index, a wage index, netto-prices,
> > > an index for construction, for road constructions and so on. Parts of
> > > the budgets are grouped in similar ways. Fx. construction expenses are
> > > identifiable and these expenses could be adjusted using the
> > > construction-price-index (same goes for salaries, road-construction
> > > etc.). This could be a reasonable approach when focusing on a specific
> > > expenditure post in a historic perspective. However to use different
> > > price-indexes on different parts of the same budget is obviously
> > > problematic because the relative size of each type of expenditure
> > > changes over time.
> >
> > This brings up another problem of what index to use. I think we can only
> > infer that from some of our data (not the majority).
> >
> > > I choose to use a combined consumer-price and wage index to adjust the
> > > historical data. This is not perfect but I found it better than using
> > > multiple indexes for different parts of the budget and better than
> > > presenting figures in real values.
> >
> > How do you combine them and what do you do when you don't have the
> > indices for the years your looking at?
> >
> > I don't want to present the amounts in real values (but I want to store
> > the real values in the database), I want to present them in "current
> > nominal value" (what it would cost if I were paying for it with today's
> > money). The problem is that I don't have the data to compute the current
> > nominal value (nor the data to compute the real value for all years).
> >
> > I'm really interested in knowing how you did this with the Danish
> > municipalities.
> >
> > --
> >
> > Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson
> >
> > Technical Lead, OpenSpending
> >
> > The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org>
> >
> > /Empowering through Open Knowledge/
> >
> > http://okfn.org/ | @okfn <http://twitter.com/OKFN> | OKF on Facebook
> > <https://facebook.com/OKFNetwork> | Blog <http://blog.okfn.org/> |
> > Newsletter <http://okfn.org/about/newsletter>
> >
> > -------------- next part --------------
> > An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> > URL: <
> >
> http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-economics/attachments/20130607/e6b107f1/attachment-0001.htm
> > >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 6
> > Date: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:13:00 +0200
> > From: Niels Erik Kaaber Rasmussen <niels at buhlrasmussen.eu>
> > Subject: Re: [open-economics] Financial comparisons
> > To: <open-economics at lists.okfn.org>
> > Message-ID: <d965d8dbbb4e6b5e7c3e7ec9cf8987dd at epdb.eu>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
> >
> > Hi
> >
> > On 2013-06-07 10:45, Tryggvi Bj?rgvinsson wrote:
> > > Hi and thanks for the reply,
> > >
> > >  On fim 6.j?n 2013 19:14, Niels Erik Kaaber Rasmussen wrote:
> > >
> > >> There are multiple official price-indexes all used by government in
> > >> different contexts: consumer-price index, a wage index, netto-prices,
> > >> an index for construction, for road constructions and so on. Parts of
> > >> the budgets are grouped in similar ways. Fx. construction expenses are
> > >> identifiable and these expenses could be adjusted using the
> > >> construction-price-index (same goes for salaries, road-construction
> > >> etc.). This could be a reasonable approach when focusing on a specific
> > >> expenditure post in a historic perspective. However to use different
> > >> price-indexes on different parts of the same budget is obviously
> > >> problematic because the relative size of each type of expenditure
> > >> changes over time.
> > >
> > >  This brings up another problem of what index to use. I think we can
> > > only infer that from some of our data (not the majority).
> > >
> > >> I choose to use a combined consumer-price and wage index to adjust
> > >> the historical data. This is not perfect but I found it better than
> > >> using multiple indexes for different parts of the budget and better
> > >> than presenting figures in real values.
> > >
> > >  How do you combine them and what do you do when you don't have the
> > > indices for the years your looking at?
> >
> > There was an existing official price-index base on a combination of
> > consumer-prices and wages. As far as I know it is simply calculated as a
> > weighted average of the consumer-price index and the wage-index.
> >
> > >  I don't want to present the amounts in real values (but I want to
> > > store the real values in the database), I want to present them in
> > > "current nominal value" (what it would cost if I were paying for it
> > > with today's money).
> >
> > The same I tried to accomplish in order to make comparisons (a little
> > more) reasonable.
> >
> > > The problem is that I don't have the data to
> > > compute the current nominal value (nor the data to compute the real
> > > value for all years).
> >
> > I understand now that this is your main problem. In the Danish case I
> > had all the data available. My main concerns was choosing the best
> > price-index; how to deal with changes in accounting practices; what
> > exactly to define as municipal-level expenses (vs. state-level); and how
> > to deal with the fact that municipal responsibilities are changing over
> > time.
> >
> >
> > /Niels Erik
> > --
> > http://www.buhlrasmussen.eu
> > (+45) 2680 9492
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > open-economics mailing list
> > open-economics at lists.okfn.org
> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-economics
> > Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/optionss/open-economics
> >
> >
> > End of open-economics Digest, Vol 30, Issue 3
> > *********************************************
> >
>
>
>
> --
> *--
> Ulrich Atz, Statistician at theODI.org <http://theodi.org>
> +44 (0) 20 3598 9395** @statshero
> The ODI, 65 Clifton Street, London EC2A 4JE <http://www.theodi.org/contact
> >*
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>
> _______________________________________________
> open-economics mailing list
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> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-economics
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> End of open-economics Digest, Vol 30, Issue 4
> *********************************************
>
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