Jacek Białek, University of Lodz, Department of Statistical Methods, Poland

Type of article: scientific article
Pages: 7 – 20

Abstract

The main purpose of the work is to present the utility of the PriceIndices R-package in the field of analysing the dynamics of scanner prices. The package can be a useful IT tool for National Statistical Offices for at least several reasons. First, it enables a comprehensive transition from raw scanner data to price indices, taking into account all intermediate steps (e.g., product classification or product matching). Secondly, the package’s functions, through their parameterization, allow experimental work to be carried out, such as setting thresholds for data filters or the length of the time window for multilateral indices. Third, the package is written in the free R environment, which does not generate any additional costs for its implementation. The presentation of this R package is divided into the following areas: scanner data preparing, data set characteristics, bilateral index calculations, multilateral index calculations, extensions of multilateral indices, aggregation of index results, and comparison of price indices. The paper presents examples concerning main package features on the basis of data sets which are available in the PriceIndices package.