Definition: Quaranta editing procedure

Category: Purchasing power parities

The inter-country validation procedure used by Eurostat and the OECD to edit the average survey prices reported by participating countries for a basic heading. For each basic heading covered by a price survey, the procedure screens the average survey prices for possible errors and evaluates the reliability of the price ratios they provide. It does this by comparing the average survey prices for the same product across countries (the average survey prices having been expressed in the same currency unit for this purpose) and by analysing the dispersion of the price ratios across countries and across products (the price ratios having been standardised for this purpose). It is thus both an editing tool and an analytical tool. As an editing tool it identifies outliers among the average survey prices that need to be returned to participating countries for verification. As an analytical tool it provides a range of variation coefficients that can be used to assess the reliability of completed price surveys and assist the planning of future price surveys.

Since 2005, the procedure has also been used to edit prices collected for ICP (International comparison programme) regional and global comparisons. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=KS-RA-12-023&mode=view Eurostat and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), "Eurostat - OECD Methodological manual on purchasing power parities (2005 Edition)", Methods and Nomenclatures, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 2006European Union, Regulation (EC) No 1445/2007 establishing rules for the provision of basic information on PPPs, Official Journal of the European Union No L 336, 20.12.2007, p. 1 - 24