The 1995/1996 Household Income, Expenditure - (PDF, 101 mb ...

V.9
receives all questionnaires from the governorates by the 23rd of the month.
The index is ready within one month (i.e., by the middle of the following
month). The enumerators collect prices from three outlets for every item on
the form in every governorate. There are indices published for the main,
strategic, items, by month. When all of the current month's prices are
received from the field, they are entered into the computer. Additionally the
prices of the same month but one year before are entered into the database to
make a match with the current item codes.
The best estimate for the price of any item uses information from many
different sources and many different varieties. To get to the "price of men's
athletic shoes," it is not enough to visit two sporting goods stores, sum the
total paid for two pairs of sneakers and divide by two. The range of prices
will be broader the more broadly defined the item is, and there is a range of
price estimates for all items. Even an item so narrowly defined as rice should
be afforded more degrees of freedom to arrive at a figure which will become a
component of a larger index for the price of "starches." Rice may be of many
varieties. Statistically, a minimum of five estimates are needed to measure the
price of the most homogeneously defined item (table salt, for example). As the
item takes on heterogeneous aspects, the argument for more degrees of
freedom becomes more compelling. To improve on estimates, then, both
varieties and outlets have to be increased. Adding varieties mainly entails
making changes to the price forms and training price-takers. Preliminary
populatiov census data can be used for framing and increasing outlet
selection. It is more important to select a random outlet with a known
probability than to assure that certain outlets (kiosk, bakery, private store,
coop or public shop, supermarket) are represented.
Generally CAPMAS pricers have not given detailed attention to item price
estimation because the pricing forms are not adequate. Instructions on the
forms refer to the need to avoid substitution of outlet, brand, and item
number and only vaguely offer the suggestion to discuss with the supervisor
the need to replace the item when it disappears from the outlet. Because of
the near-infinite variety of some goods, true average prices either become
theoretical constructs, or the price enumerator will admit defeat and end up
putting a price of 0.00 in the column. With so many zeros, the decision of
which goods to price in a given month appears arbitrary. In all survey data
collection, indeed in the very nature of the process of collecting information,
the tendency is to get less detail, to be less specific and less explicit. If
enumerators are given a choice of the category "Other," they will categorize
things that wayan inordinate number of times. The choice of a substitute for
the item-to-be-priced is often more of an art than a science, but it is
facilitated by an easy to use form.
Figures V.I and V.2 are examples of different pricing forms - from
Belize and Kazakhstan. They can be compared with an example of Egypt's
form, Figure V.3. The example shown for Belize is the "Miscellaneous" form,
which was constructed with prices for services, such as transportation and
of preserving the "solidarity of prestige."
1 In practice the selection of outlets may favor an inverse correlation
with the cost of petrol and the opportunity cost (in time units) of
administration, now heavily oriented to the population census.