International Comparison Program
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The International Comparison Program (ICP) is a worldwide statistical partnership led by the World Bank under the auspices of the United Nations Statistical Commission. The ICP collects price and expenditure data from most of the world’s economies and estimates purchasing power parities (PPPs). It periodically publishes results including PPPs, the size of world economies, per capita measures and price levels, as well as details on the methodology employed by the program.
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Publication
Purchasing Power Parities for Policy Making: A Visual Guide to Using Data from the International Comparison Program
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-10)The International Comparison Program (ICP) is a worldwide statistical initiative led by the World Bank under the auspices of the United Nations Statistical Commission. It produces comparable price and volume measures of gross domestic product (GDP) and its expenditure aggregates across economies. Through a partnership with international, regional, sub-regional and national agencies, the ICP collects price data and GDP expenditures to estimate purchasing power parities (PPPs) for the world’s economies. This guide provides an overview of how data and indicators based on these ICP outputs are used in a host of analyses, including monitoring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, to inform policy making across the socioeconomic spectrum at the national, regional, and international levels. Seventy charts and maps illustrating these uses are organised under eleven policy-focused chapters: the size of the economy and price levels; poverty and inequality; trade and competitiveness; labor costs, wages, and social safety nets; food and nutrition; health; education; energy and climate; infrastructure; human development; and administrative uses. The indicators are produced by the World Bank and other organizations including Eurostat, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Energy Agency, the International Labour Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the International Telecommunication Union, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the World Economic Forum, and the World Health Organization. The guide also highlights notable uses of underlying ICP data on food prices and on public sector wages, as well as the wealth of data from the ICP database itself, such as price levels, real expenditures, and expenditure shares for aggregates below GDP for each economy. In addition, the guide includes a comprehensive chapter on the uses and limitations of PPPs and analyses for which they are appropriate, as well as a technical note outlining the concepts and definitions of terms used. A web-based version (https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/icp/brief/PPPs-for-Policy ) is also available, and more information can be found on icp.worldbank.org. -
Publication
Purchasing Power Parities and the Size of World Economies: Results from the 2017 International Comparison Program
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-05-19)The International Comparison Program (ICP) is a worldwide statistical initiative led by the World Bank under the auspices of the United Nations Statistical Commission. It produces comparable price and volume measures of gross domestic product (GDP) and its expenditure aggregates across economies. Through a partnership with international, regional, sub-regional and national agencies, the ICP collects price data and GDP expenditures to estimate purchasing power parities (PPPs) for the world’s economies. The report provides ICP results for the benchmark year 2017 and revised results for earlier years. ICP data are used for socio-economic analyses by researchers, academics, policy makers at the national and international levels, and by organizations such as the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United Nations, and the World Bank. Notably, PPPs and ICP data are used in indicators monitoring progress towards eight goals of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the World Bank’s international poverty lines, and the construction of the Human Development Index by the United Nations, among others. The use of PPPs continues to grow and the ICP website (icp.worldbank.org) lists many applications of the data by the development community, academia, media and others. -
Publication
Operational Guidelines and Procedures for Measuring the Real Size of the World Economy: 2011 International Comparison Program
(Washington, DC, 2015-08)The International Comparison Program (ICP) is a worldwide statistical initiative—the largest in geographical scope, in implementation time frame, and in institutional partnership. It estimates purchasing power parities (PPPs) for use as currency converters to compare the size and price levels of economies around the world. Numerous methodological improvements and operational guidelines were introduced in the 2011 round of the ICP for the advancement of the program. The Operational Guidelines and Procedures for Measuring the Real Size of the World Economy is a compilation of ICP operational guidelines and material prepared by the ICP 2011 Global Office team, consultants, and international experts. It describes the approach to and data requirements for the main price survey and special surveys, including the various guidelines produced and survey forms. It also covers the framework and requirements for national accounts activities for the ICP. In addition, this guide describes the procedures followed for data validation, computation of national annual averages, calculation of PPPs, aggregation, and linking. Disclosure of the procedures underlying the ICP 2011 process heightens the transparency of the program and allows interested stakeholders and users of the results to delve into the ICP methods and operational aspects in order to better understand and interpret the results. -
Publication
Purchasing Power Parities and Real Expenditures of World Economics : A Comprehensive Report of the 2011 International Comparison Program
(Washington, DC, 2015)The International Comparison Program (ICP) is a large and highly complex worldwide statistical program conducted under the charter of the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC). The ICP is designed to provide globally comparable economic aggregates in national accounts that can be used by individual researchers, analysts, and policy makers at the national and international levels and by international organizations such as the European Union, International Monetary Fund, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations, and World Bank. Over its lifetime, the ICP has become the principal source of data on the purchasing power parities (PPPs) of currencies, measures of real per capita income, and measures of real gross domestic product (GDP) and its main components from the expenditure side, including private consumption, government expenditures, and gross fixed capital formation. Indeed, since its inception in 1970, successive rounds of the ICP have produced valuable data for international economic analyses of economic growth and the catch-up and convergence of incomes among nations; productivity levels and trends; analyses of systematic patterns in national price levels and trends; construction of the Human Development Index by the United Nations; measures of regional and global inequality in incomes and consumption; and estimates of the incidence of absolute poverty using World Bank developed yardsticks such as the US$1 a day and $2 a day poverty lines. -
Publication
Understanding Changes in Methodology between the 2005 and 2011 International Comparison Programs
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-01-24)This paper provides an overview of the technical decisions that underlie the results of the 2011 international comparison program (ICP) and concludes that there are no further steps or computations that will have any substantive impact on the final results. It also provides a review of methodological changes that can affect the comparison of the 2011 results with the 2005 results. The 2005 ICP produced estimates of purchasing power parities (PPPs), real expenditures, and price level indexes for 146 countries around the world, making it the largest statistical exercise undertaken on a global basis. A number of new techniques were introduced in the 2005 ICP, and the detailed data available from that round enabled an in-depth analysis to be undertaken of not only the results but also the impact of various methods that were employed, particularly those used to link the PPPs for the six regions to provide consistent estimates for all 146 countries. This report details the choices made for ICP 2011 and how they affect comparability with ICP 2005. -
Publication
Measuring the Real Size of the World Economy : The Framework, Methodology, and Results of the International Comparison Program—ICP
(Washington, DC, 2013-05-03)This book is the most comprehensive accounting ever presented by the International Comparison Program (ICP) of the theory and methods underlying the estimation of purchasing power parities (PPPs). PPPs reveal the relative sizes of economies by converting their gross domestic products and related measurements into a common currency, thereby enabling comparisons based on economic and statistical theory. By disclosing the theory, concepts, and methods underlying the estimates, this book increases the transparency of the ICP process. Greater transparency allows researchers, users of PPPs, and those involved in implementation of the program to better understand the strengths, limitations, and assumptions underlying its results. is book also provides a forward-looking view of methodological developments with an eye toward improving the quality of future comparisons. The ICP is now the largest and most complex statistical program in the world. In 2005 it included 100 countries and economies, working in parallel with the 46 countries in the Eurostat-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) PPP program. Measuring the Real Size of the World Economy was prepared by the ICP Global Office in the World Bank, with contributions from the leading international experts in the fields of economics and statistics on international comparisons. -
Publication
Global Purchasing Power Parities and Real Expenditures : 2005 International Comparison Program
(Washington, DC, 2008)The International Comparison Program (ICP) is a worldwide statistical initiative to collect comparative price data and estimate purchasing power parities (PPPs) of the world's economies. Using PPPs instead of market exchange rates to convert currencies makes it possible to compare the output of economies and the welfare of their inhabitants in real terms (that is, controlling for differences in price levels). This report brings together the results of two separate PPP programs. The first is the global ICP program conducted by the ICP global office within the World Bank, which provided overall coordination for the collection of data and calculation of PPPs in more than 100 (mostly developing) economies. The program was organized into five geographic areas: Africa, Asia-Pacific, Commonwealth of Independent States, South America, and Western Asia. Regional agencies took the lead in coordinating the work in the five regions. In parallel, the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) conducted their 2005 PPP program, which comprised 46 economies. Eurostat covered 37 economies: the 25 European Union (EU) member states; the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) economies (Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland); and Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Turkey. The OECD part of the program included 9 other economies: Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, the Russian Federation, and the United States. The main reasons for conducting the ICP on a regional basis are that the products to be priced are more homogeneous within regions, the expenditure patterns are likely to be more similar, and language differences are reduced. Moreover, dividing the ICP organization among a number of regional offices in relatively close proximity to the economies they are coordinating provides operational benefits.