IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/b/wbk/wbpubs/11855.html
   My bibliography  Save this book

World Development Indicators 2008

Author

Listed:
  • World Bank

Abstract

Release of the final report of the International Comparison Program (ICP) and publication of new estimates of purchasing power parities (PPPs) in World Development Indicators 2008 are an important statistical milestone. The estimates offer a consistent and comprehensive set of data on the cost of living in developed and developing countries, the first since 1997, when the results of the previous ICP data collection were published in World Development Indicators. The 2005 data cover 146 countries and territories, 29 more than the last round in 1993, and many for the first time. Collecting data on thousands of products sold through a multitude of outlets, the 2005 ICP is the largest international statistical program ever undertaken. New methods were used to describe the products being priced, record the data, and analyze the results. Countries in Africa took the opportunity to review their national accounts and adopt new standards and methods. In all regions regional coordinators worked closely with national statistical offices to collect and validate the data. The result is a genuine global effort, with an extensive capacity building component. More work will follow from the ICP. First is the revision of the international ($1 a day) poverty line and estimation of the corresponding poverty rates, certain to change a view of the absolute level of poverty in the world. PPPs have many applications in economic analysis. They are used to determine the relative size of countries and their obligations to international institutions. The publication of new estimates will inspire a new wave of academic studies. And as all of this work goes on, planning for the next round of the ICP will be getting under way.

Suggested Citation

  • World Bank, 2008. "World Development Indicators 2008," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 11855, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbpubs:11855
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/11855/Worlddevelopmentindicators2008.pdf?sequence=1
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbpubs:11855. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tal Ayalon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.