Estimating Detailed Household Budget Shares for the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey Based on the International Standard Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP)

• Activity Number: 282
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Government Statistics*
• Author(s): Dale Smith*+ and Mary Lynn Schmidt
• Affiliation(s): U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Keywords: classification ; household expenditure survey ; COICOP ; budget share

Abstract

The Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) as part of the 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA) is widely used throughout the world for classification and coding of personal consumption-related data associated with consumer expenditure surveys, personal consumption estimates for the national accounts, and Consumer Price Indices (CPIs). However, COICOP is not presently used for the purpose of classifying and coding of any of these official databases and statistical series in the United States. For this study, the results of the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) will be classified by COICOP and budget shares will be tabulated at the five-digit COICOP level. These detailed results based on consumption-oriented budget shares, rather than outlays-oriented budget shares currently published for the CE, will assist in making comparisons with corresponding data from other countries. At the same time, these results will provide a framework for making detailed comparisons of CE data with personal consumption data from the U.S. national accounts.