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7th Ottawa Group Meeting on Price Indices

Welcome to the website for the seventh meeting of the Ottawa Group, to be hosted by INSEE in Paris from 27 to 29 May 2003.The previous meeting of the group was hosted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics from 2 to 6 April 2001.

This website contains general information about the Ottawa Group, topics for discussion at the meeting, practical information about the meeting for participants, the papers submitted by participants for discussion at the meeting, the agenda of the meeting, the list of participants and links to other relevant sites. The site will be regularly updated as soon as the relevant information is available.

Background

The Ottawa Group was created in 1994 to provide a forum for specialists to share their experiences and discuss research on crucial problems of measuring price change. Without avoiding theoretical issues, the focus of the Group is on applied research, particularly, though not exclusively, in the area of consumer price indices. Participants are specialists and practitioners who work for, or are advisors to, statistical agencies in different countries, or international organisations. The Group meets every 18 months.

Terms of reference

The Ottawa Group provides a forum for specialists and practitioners who work for, or are advisors to, national statistical agencies or international organisations to exchange their experiences and thoughts on crucial problems of measuring price change. The Group's strength is based on its professional authority, independence, and usefulness to national and international statistical agencies.

Without avoiding theoretical issues, the focus of the Group is on applied research, particularly though not exclusively, in the area of consumer price indices. The Group examines advantages and disadvantages of various concepts, methods and procedures in the context of realistic operational environments, supported by concrete examples whenever possible.

Only specialists actively involved in the application of the principles relating to the topics under discussion are invited to the Group's meetings as active participants. The proceedings from the sessions are edited and diffused. They contain the presented papers and the most important elements of discussions. They also include the Group's recommendations when a preponderant opinion clearly emerges from the discussions, or, if this is not the case, a summary of the discordant opinions with balanced commentary.

The Group may also assemble and publish compendia of materials related to specific topics of price statistics, composed of papers and of summaries of discussions from several meetings. Each of these publications could constitute chapters of a Handbook describing best practices in the given area of price statistics.

Organisation of the Group

The Group has a Steering Committee, which ensures both the continuity and evolution of the Group's activities. The Committee comprises representatives of the agencies that host the Group's recent or upcoming meetings together with others agreed to by the membership from time to time. The representative of the Australian Bureau of Statistics is currently serving as executive Secretary.

The Committee outlines long-term activity plans for the Group and proposes topics for the meetings. Meetings are organised in principle once a year, with topics established in advance for at least the next two meetings. The Committee extends calls to selected agencies for the submission of papers on the agreed topics and is responsible for the selection of papers to be presented. Their authors are invited to the meeting, possibly with other specialists whose contribution to the discussion on a specific topic is considered useful. The number of active participants is kept limited for the sake of efficient discussion, however the host agency may invite a reasonable number of additional participants.

Although the meetings may be divided into sessions, these are not organised in a parallel manner. Each session is devoted to one, clearly defined topic with a designated moderator who is also responsible for producing a summary of the discussions and recording any recommendations.

The host agency provides facilities for the meeting and arranges for the hard-copy publication of proceedings. The participants bear the cost of travel, accommodation and subsistence during the sessions.
The copies of proceedings and information about the Group are also available on the Internet. The agency providing secretariat services (currently the Australian Bureau of Statistics) is responsible for maintaining a Web-site open to the public. This site was formerly developed by Statistics Canada. The Steering Committee may also decide to edit and periodically release compendia on selected topics, whenever it is warranted by the status of available materials.