PPI Introduces Experimental Aggregation System

On February 14, 2011, the Producer Price Index (PPI) of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) introduced an Experimental Aggregation system. This Experimental Aggregation system takes advantage of PPI’s expansion of coverage over the last twenty years to include portions of the services and construction sectors by combining indexes for those sectors with the currently highlighted goods sector indexes. This new system is a model that greatly expands PPI coverage of the United States economy.

Federal Register Notice

PPI is currently soliciting feedback from data users with regards to its new Experimental Aggregation System. To provide feedback, please refer to the following Federal Register Notice and send comments to Weinhagen.Jonathan@bls.gov.

• Federal Register Notice on PPI Experimental Aggregation System

Methodology

• PPI Introduces Experimental Aggregation System. Focus on Prices and Spending: Producer Price Indexes. (HTML) (PDF)
• PPI Introduces Experimental Aggregation System. PPI Detailed Report. January 2011 (PDF)
• Methodological Overview of PPI Experimental Aggregation System. Monthly Labor Review. February 2011 (PDF)
• 2002 BEA Data Analysis for the Development of the Experimental PPI Aggregation System (PDF)
• Tables of industry stage assignments in intermediate demand by production flow
• PPI Experimental Aggregation System Conference Slideshow. September 2011 (PDF 1MB)
• NEW PPI Expands Seasonal Adjustment Coverage. February 2013 (HTML)

Relative Importance & Seasonal Factor Tables

• UPDATED Final demand by individual commodities
• UPDATED Final demand by component series

• Intermdediate demand by commodity type relative importance tables
• UPDATED Individual commodities of intermediate demand by commodity type
• UPDATED Component series of intermediate demand by commodity type
• Intermediate demand by production flow relative importance tables
• UPDATED Individual commodities of intermediate demand by production flow
• UPDATED Component series of intermediate demand by production flow
• NEW Experimental aggregation index seasonal factors for 2008-2012

• Archived relative importance tables

Coverage Limitations

As of January 2010, the PPI program included price indexes for approximately 650 industries in the mining, forestry, utility, construction, manufacturing, and service sectors of the economy. Though coverage continues to expand, there remains a number of industries not currently included in the PPI, consequently, commodities produced by these industries are excluded from the Experimental Aggregation system. These industries are listed in the table below.

• Areas of noncoverage in the PPI system

How to Obtain PPI Experimental Aggregation Data

The latest data for PPI Experimental Aggregation indexes is available in Tables 10-15 of the PPI Detailed Report. In addition to the latest data, all available historical data can be retrieved through the PPI commodity data searches in BLS Databases and Tools. For a list of all available PPI Experimental Aggregation indexes by title and series id code, see the document linked below. Another way to see all available data is by inputing your selected series ids into the BLS Series Report Tool, one identifier per line.

• Experimental Aggregation indexes by title and series id

Further Information

For further information on this new system, please contact Jon Weinhagen at Weinhagen.Jonathan@bls.gov or (202) 691-7709. For further assistance contact the PPI Section of Index Analysis and Public Information at ppi-info@bls.gov or (202) 691-7705.

 

Last Modified Date: February 15, 2013