Price Statistics and Index Numbers Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Economists, Official statisticians and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 7 Nov 2026 Course code SD-EE-025

Before you join: Participants should be comfortable with percentages, weighted averages, spreadsheets and basic descriptive statistics.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Price indices influence monetary policy, wage negotiations, pension uprating, contract escalation, national accounts deflation and commercial price decisions. Poorly specified baskets, outdated weights, weak outlet samples or untested quality changes can produce misleading inflation measures and create material financial, policy and reputational consequences. Professionals responsible for price data need to explain how an index is constructed, test whether it remains fit for purpose, and communicate limitations clearly.

This course develops practical competence in price statistics and index-number methods. Participants examine price concepts, sampling frames, data collection, validation, weighting, aggregation, quality adjustment and index calculation. They compare Laspeyres, Paasche, Fisher and chained indices; distinguish consumer, producer, export and import price indices; and assess how substitutions, missing observations, seasonal products and product replacements affect published results. The course also covers index interpretation, revision policy, error analysis, deflation and contractual indexation.

Instruction combines concise technical briefings with worked calculations, public-sector and commercial cases, facilitated group analysis, spreadsheet-based index construction and application planning. Cases include consumer price measurement, construction-cost escalation, producer-price reporting and deflating nominal financial data. Participants leave with an index design workbook, calculation templates, data-validation checklist and a documented plan for reviewing or improving a price-index process.

The course suits economists, statisticians, finance professionals, procurement specialists, analysts and managers who use, produce, audit or interpret price indices. It is particularly relevant to central banks, national statistical offices, ministries, regulators, banks, infrastructure operators, manufacturers and organisations managing long-term indexed contracts.

What you will be able to do

  • Define target populations, price concepts and index purposes for a price-statistics programme
  • Design sampling frames and outlet-product samples using probability and purposive methods
  • Calculate Laspeyres, Paasche, Fisher and chained price indices from price observations
  • Construct expenditure weights and assess their effect on index movements
  • Apply quality-adjustment and replacement methods for changing products and specifications
  • Validate price data using edit rules, outlier analysis and temporal consistency checks
  • Interpret consumer, producer, export and import price indices for policy and business decisions
  • Prepare an index methodology note, revision policy and publication-quality results

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Explain index movements without confusing price levels, relatives and percentage changes
  • Build defensible price indices from raw observations and documented weights
  • Identify bias risks caused by substitutions, missing prices and obsolete products
  • Assess whether contractual escalation indices match the costs being escalated
  • Contribute credibly to inflation, deflation and price-statistics review discussions

For your organisation

  • Improve reliability of price measures used in budgeting, reporting and policy analysis
  • Reduce disputes arising from poorly selected or misapplied contract escalation indices
  • Strengthen documentation, controls and audit trails for index-production processes
  • Detect data-quality issues before they distort published inflation or cost measures
  • Support better deflation of nominal values for performance and volume analysis

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can define the purpose, scope and core concepts of a price-statistics programme.

  • Price statistics purposes: inflation measurement, deflation, escalation and market monitoring
  • Transaction prices, list prices and administered prices distinguished by use
  • Price relatives, price levels and index points interpreted correctly
  • Fixed-basket and cost-of-living index concepts compared
  • Reference period, base period and price reference month defined
  • Statistical units, target populations and classification structures specified

Participants can select and calculate index formulas appropriate to a stated measurement purpose.

  • Laspeyres index calculated using base-period expenditure weights
  • Paasche index calculated using current-period expenditure weights
  • Fisher ideal index derived as Laspeyres and Paasche geometric mean
  • Carli, Dutot and Jevons formulas compared for elementary aggregates
  • Axiomatic tests used to assess formula properties and bias
  • Formula selection matched to data availability and intended interpretation

Participants can design a documented price-collection and sample-selection approach.

  • Sampling frames built from business registers, outlets and transaction sources
  • Probability sampling methods: simple random, stratified and probability proportional selection
  • Purposive sampling applied where complete frames are unavailable
  • Outlet, product and respondent selection rules documented clearly
  • Price specifications define brand, quantity, quality and transaction conditions
  • Collection frequencies aligned with price volatility and publication requirements

Participants can construct and maintain expenditure-weighted baskets using suitable classifications.

  • Expenditure weights derived from household surveys and administrative sources
  • COICOP classification structures applied to consumer expenditure categories
  • Weight reference periods reconciled with index reference periods
  • Plutocratic and democratic weighting approaches distinguished analytically
  • Basket updates address consumption shifts and market entry
  • Weight aging assessed through sensitivity analysis and revision schedules

Participants can compile elementary and higher-level indices from collected price data.

  • Price relatives calculated from matched product price observations
  • Jevons geometric mean applied within homogeneous elementary aggregates
  • Laspeyres aggregation combines lower-level indices using expenditure shares
  • Direct and indirect aggregation methods compared using identical source data
  • Index contributions calculated to explain aggregate price movements
  • Chain-linking procedures connect series after weight or basket updates

Participants can treat quality changes, replacements and missing prices using documented methods.

  • Matched-model pricing isolates pure price change between equivalent products
  • Overlap pricing estimates quality differences using concurrent observations
  • Hedonic regression adjusts prices for measurable product characteristics
  • Option-cost adjustment values specification changes from supplier information
  • Class-mean imputation treats temporarily unavailable price observations
  • Replacement rules manage discontinued products, seasonal goods and outlet closures

Participants can apply controls that identify and investigate price-data errors before calculation.

  • Range edits flag implausible prices, quantities and price relatives
  • Temporal edits compare movements against prior observations and thresholds
  • Outlier detection uses interquartile ranges, z-scores and visual review
  • Respondent queries resolve specification changes and exceptional price movements
  • Audit trails record edits, imputations, overrides and approvals
  • Sampling and non-sampling errors assessed through documented quality indicators

Participants can distinguish major price-index families and interpret their analytical uses.

  • Consumer Price Index scope covers household final monetary consumption expenditure
  • Producer Price Index stages measure output, input and intermediate prices
  • Export and import price indices isolate cross-border transaction price movements
  • Basic prices, purchasers' prices and producers' prices reconciled
  • Taxes, subsidies, margins and transport costs treated consistently
  • Index choice matched to inflation analysis, procurement and financial reporting

Participants can apply and interpret price indices in financial, policy and contractual analysis.

  • Nominal values deflated to estimate volume changes over time
  • Deflator selection matches price concept, industry coverage and timing
  • Real growth rates calculated from consistent nominal and price series
  • Escalation clauses specify index series, lag, base month and adjustment formula
  • Contribution analysis separates category effects within headline index movements
  • Base effects and rebasing distinguished from genuine price acceleration

Participants can document, review and communicate an index-production process for accountable use.

  • Methodology statements document scope, sources, formulas and treatment rules
  • Revision policies define triggers, schedules, communication and version control
  • Confidentiality controls protect respondent data and commercially sensitive prices
  • Release calendars separate compilation deadlines from publication dates
  • Metadata tables disclose weights, classifications, base periods and limitations
  • Application plans prioritise index improvements, owners, milestones and controls

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Price-index design workbook
  2. Laspeyres, Paasche and Fisher calculation template
  3. Price-data validation checklist
  4. Quality-adjustment decision tree
  5. Contract escalation clause review guide
  6. Index methodology and revision-policy template

Who should attend

  • Economists — need defensible inflation and deflation measures for analysis and policy
  • Official statisticians — design, compile or review consumer and producer price indices
  • Financial analysts — interpret price movements within forecasts, valuations and reporting
  • Procurement managers — apply published indices to escalation clauses and supplier contracts
  • Central bank analysts — assess inflation signals and methodological effects on published data
  • Internal auditors — test controls, documentation and calculation logic within index processes

Skills and tools covered

Index-number calculationPrice data validationExpenditure weightingQuality adjustmentInflation measurementIndex interpretation

Tools and standards

IMF Consumer Price Index Manual, Producer Price Index Manual, Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose (COICOP), System of National Accounts 2008

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short technical briefings followed by worked index calculations, spreadsheet analysis and facilitated case discussions. Participants examine realistic price datasets, identify collection and validation issues, compare formula outcomes and document methodological choices. Group work focuses on consumer prices, producer prices, construction escalation and financial deflation cases. Simulations address missing prices, product replacement, weight updates and revisions. Each participant develops an application plan linked to an index, contract, dataset or reporting process used in their role.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should be comfortable with percentages, weighted averages, spreadsheets and basic descriptive statistics. Experience working with prices, costs, financial data, procurement data or economic indicators is useful. Familiarity with inflation, consumer price indices or national accounts will help, but it is not assumed. Participants should be able to read tables, interpret charts and perform simple spreadsheet calculations. Advanced econometrics, programming, calculus and prior experience producing official statistics are not required. A laptop with spreadsheet software is recommended for live calculations and template completion.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should be comfortable with percentages, weighted averages and basic spreadsheet work. Prior exposure to inflation, procurement costs or economic data is useful, but advanced statistics or econometrics is not required.

Bring a laptop with spreadsheet software if possible, plus an example of a price series, escalation clause or reporting issue from your work. Course materials and calculation datasets are provided.

It is designed for economists, official statisticians, financial analysts, procurement professionals, auditors and managers who work with price data or indexed values. It is suitable for public-sector and commercial participants.

This course focuses on constructing, validating, interpreting and governing price indices. It goes beyond discussing inflation drivers by examining formulas, weights, sampling, quality adjustment, revisions and contractual applications.

You can assess whether an index fits a contract or reporting purpose, test price-data quality, calculate alternative index measures and explain movements to decision-makers. The templates can be adapted for internal indices or review of published series.

The course runs for five instructor-led days, normally 08:30 to 16:30, with about 6.5 contact hours daily. Time is divided between technical instruction, calculations, cases, group analysis and application planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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