The International Comparison Program (shortened ICP) is a partnership of various statistical administrations of up to 199 countries guided by the
World Bank. The main partners of this program are the
World Bank,
IMF,
UN,
ADB,
OECD,
CISSTAT,
Eurostat
Eurostat ('European Statistical Office'; DG ESTAT) is a Directorate-General of the European Commission located in the Kirchberg quarter of Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. Eurostat's main responsibilities are to provide statistical information to ...
,
AfDB ESCWA,
ECLAC
The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, known as ECLAC, UNECLAC or in Spanish and Portuguese CEPAL, is a United Nations regional commission to encourage economic cooperation. ECLAC includes 46 member States (2 ...
,
DFID,
ABS,
IDB,
NMoFA who are also all part of the executive board.
The Program produces internationally comparable price and volume measures for gross domestic product (
GDP
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...
). Its component expenditures are based on purchasing power parities (
PPPs). The International Comparison Program holds surveys collecting price and expenditure data for the entire range of final goods and services at intervals of some few years (the last two were separated by six years). The surveys cover GDPs of countries including their consumer goods, services, government services and capital goods. The ICP tries to make different countries GDPs comparable by calculating them in PPP both currency converters and spatial price deflators.
The responsibility for the ICP within regions is shared between the national and regional agencies which represent various countries. National statistical offices carry out data collection but regional agencies provide guidance, collection, coordinating of data and data validation. Regional agencies also put together and finalize the regional comparisons.
The ICP has published its PPP results eight times so far – the first time for 1970 (a preliminary study for 1967 was also carried out) and the latest for 2011.
See also
*
Big Mac Index
The Big Mac Index is a price index published since 1986 by ''The Economist'' as an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies and providing a test of the extent to which market exchange rates result i ...
*
International dollar
*
List of countries by GDP (PPP)
*
List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita
*
Measures of national income and output
*
Purchasing power parity
*
Relative purchasing power parity
Relative Purchasing Power Parity is an economic theory which predicts a relationship between the inflation rates of two countries over a specified period and the movement in the exchange rate between their two currencies over the same period. It is ...
*
World Bank
References
{{reflist
External links
*http://icp.worldbank.org/#
*http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/DATASTATISTICS/ICPEXT/0,,contentMDK:22377119~menuPK:62002075~pagePK:60002244~piPK:62002388~theSitePK:270065,00.html
*http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/faq.htm#q4c
*http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/DATASTATISTICS/ICPEXT/0,,contentMDK:22377133~pagePK:60002244~piPK:62002388~theSitePK:270065,00.html
Gross domestic product
World Bank