Indexes are based on selling prices reported by establishments of all sizes by probability sampling. Industries selected by value added. N.e.c.= not elsewhere classified

Producer Price Indexes The term Producer Price Index (PPI) refers to a family of indexes that measure the average change over time in the selling prices received by domestic producers of goods and services. PPIs measure price change from the perspective of the seller. This contrasts with other measures, such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI); CPIs measure price change from the purchaser's perspective. Sellers' and purchasers' prices may differ due to government subsidies, sales and excise taxes, and distribution costs. Over 10,000 PPIs for individual products and groups of products are released each month. PPIs are available for the products of virtually every industry in the mining and manufacturing sectors of the U.S. economy. New PPIs are gradually being introduced for the products of industries in the transportation, utilities, trade, finance, and services sectors of the economy. Over 100,000 price quotations per month are organized into three sets of producer price indexes: (1) Stage of processing indexes; (2) commodity indexes; and (3) indexes for the net output of industries and their products. The stage-of-processing structure (tables 1, 2, and 5) organizes products by class of buyer and degree of fabrication. The commodity structure (tables 2 and 3) organizes products by similarity of end-use or material composition. The entire output of various industries is sampled to derive price indexes for the net output of industries and their products. Within the stage-of-processing system, finished goods are commodities that will not undergo further processing and are ready for sale to the final demand user, either an individual consumer or business firm. Consumer foods include unprocessed foods such as eggs and fresh vegetables, as well as processed foods such as bakery products and meats. Other finished consumer goods include durable goods such as automobiles, household furniture, and appliances; and nondurable goods such as apparel and home heating oil. Capital equipment includes producer durable goods such as heavy motor trucks, tractors, and machine tools. The stage-of-processing category for intermediate materials, supplies, and components consists partly of commodities that have been processed but require further processing. Examples of such semifinished goods include flour, cotton yarn, steel mill products, and lumber. The intermediate goods category also encompasses nondurable physically complete items purchased by business firms as inputs for their operations. Examples include diesel fuel, belts and belting, paper boxes, and fertilizers. Crude materials for further processing are products entering the market for the first time that have not been manufactured or fabricated and that are not sold directly to consumers. Crude foodstuffs and feedstuffs include items such as grains and livestock. Examples of crude nonfood materials include raw cotton, crude petroleum, coal, hides and skins, and iron and steel scrap. Producer price indexes for the net output of industries and their products are grouped according to the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC). Industry price indexes are compatible with other economic time series organized by SIC codes, such as data on employment, wages, and productivity. Table 4 lists indexes for the net output of major mining and manufacturing industry groups at the 2-digit level. Producer price indexes are based on selling prices reported by establishments of all sizes selected by probability sampling, with the probability of selection proportionate to size. Individual items and transaction terms from these firms are also chosen by probability proportionate to size. BLS strongly encourages cooperating companies to supply actual transaction prices at the time of shipment to minimize the use of list prices. Prices are normally reported by mail questionnaire for the Tuesday of the week containing the 13th. Price data are provided on a voluntary and confidential basis; no one but sworn BLS employees are allowed access to individual company price reports. The Bureau publishes price indexes instead of unit dollar prices. All producer price indexes are routinely subject to revision once, 4 months after original publication, to reflect the availability of late reports and corrections by respondents. Weights for most traditional commodity groupings of the PPI, as well as all indexes (such as stage-of-processing indexes) calculated from traditional commodity groupings, currently reflect 1992 values of shipments as reported in the Census of Manufactures and other sources. From January 1992 through December 1995, PPI weights were derived from 1987 shipment values. Industry indexes shown in table 4 are also now calculated with 1992 net output weights. This periodic update of the value weights used to calculate the PPI is done to more accurately reflect changes in production and marketing patterns in the economy. Net output values of shipments are used as weights for industry indexes. Net output values refer to the value of shipments from establishments in one industry to establishments classified in another industry. However, weights for commodity price indexes are based on gross shipment values, including shipment values between establishments within the same industry. As a result, broad commodity grouping indexes such as the all commodities index are affected by the multiple counting of price change at successive stages of processing, which can lead to exaggerated or misleading signals about inflation. Stage-of- processing indexes partially correct this defect, but industry indexes consistently correct for this at all levels of aggregation. Therefore, industry and stage-of-processing indexes are more appropriate than broad commodity groupings for economic analysis of general price trends. Effective with publication of January 1988 data, many important PPI series (including stage-of-processing groupings and most commodity groups and individual items) were placed on a new reference base, 1982=100. From 1971 through 1987, the standard reference base for most PPI series was 1967=100. Except for rounding differences, the shift to the new reference base did not alter any changes to previously published percent changes for affected PPI series. (See ""Calculating Index Changes,"" below.) The new reference base is not used for indexes with a base later than December 1981, nor for indexes for the net output of industries and their products.