Conferences and Seminars


Sessions at international conferences and seminars on ICP/PPPs were organized with the aim of promoting the uses of PPPs and exploring ICP related topics. [Other Uses of ICP Results]

Date Organizer Seminar Session Location
March 5, 2019 World Bank Poverty Measurement Smackdown  Washington DC  
A debate on the use of international poverty lines between Sanjay Reddy, Associate Professor at The New School for Social Research, and Francisco Ferreira, of the World Bank’s Development Research Group, discussed the appropriateness of PPPs collected across low, middle and high-income countries for poverty assessment, and the effect of methodology changes in the ICP in previous years
October 29, 2018 Beijing Normal University

Fifty Years of the International Comparison Program: Achievements and Moving Forward

  Beijing
Beijing Normal University hosted an event celebrating the first 50 years of the ICP.  Price statisticians and academics discussed the future of the ICP in an expanding digital economy, buoyed by the growing capabilities of artificial intelligence, and the potential new partnerships enabled by new technologies.  Representatives from Beijing Normal University, Tsinghua University, Oxford University, the University of Queensland and others, as well as institutions such as the World Bank and OECD presented the latest knowledge, research and technology on a range of topics including prices, living standards, income, and productivity, as well as examples of ICP methodology in practice.
May 23, 2018 The World Bank 50 Years of Measuring World Economies   Washington DC
To commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the ICP, the World Bank Group hosted an event on May 23, 2018 at its Headquarters in Washington DC. World Bank Group Chief Executive Officer Kristalina Georgieva delivered opening remarks to a fireside chat with 2015 Nobel Laureate in economics Sir Angus Deaton and Georgetown University Provost Robert M. Groves on the challenges and opportunities for investing in evidence for sustainable development.  Lawrence H. Summers, the 71st Secretary of the US Treasury and son of ICP co-founder Robert Summers, shared a recorded tribute. Please also visit ICP 50th anniversary special page for more information.
July 16-21, 2017 The International Statistical Institute

The 61st International Statistical Institute World Statistics Congress

IPS047: ICP Challenges and Opportunities / IPS080: Sub-national PPPs / STS041: Subnational PPP in the 2017 ICP cycle for emerging economies  Marrakech, Morocco
Speakers from the World Bank as well as researchers presented papers and participated in discussion relating to the ICP and sub-national PPPs. Yuri Dikhanov of the ICP Global Unit presented two papers: “Subnational purchasing power parities in Asia: prospects and feasibilities” and "International comparison program: methodological challenges and research agenda”. The ICP was 
July 12, 2017 The World Bank Hands-on poverty measurement training PPP methodology Washington DC
Yuri Dikhanov (ICP Global Unit) provided a lecture for World Bank poverty economists on ICP, PPP calcualtion and other PPP methodologies as a part of poverty measurement training.
May 9-12, 2017 The World Bank Inter-Secretariat Working Group on Price Statistics (IWGPS) Eltville am Rhein, Germany
Price index experts including Global ICP Unit staff discussed upcoming revision of the CPI manual, big data, scanner data, web scrapping, and other issues related to price statistics.
April 10, 2017 The World Bank Poverty Counts: The Future of Global Poverty Monitoring at the World Bank   Washington DC
Dean Jolliffe, senior economist at Development Research Group of the World Bank, presented how the World Bank monitors progress towards the extreme poverty goal, including an explanation of how the $1.90 international poverty line was established and the role of purchasing power parity indices. He then discussed some of the supplemental poverty measures that will be monitored in addition to the measure of extreme poverty.
February 15, 2017 The World Bank A workshop on Global Poverty and ICP/PPP   Washington DC
A whole-day workshop for the World Bank economists and statisticians was organized to discuss the latest ICP results and methodology, as well as current and future uses of PPPs for measuring global poverty.
December 6-8, 2016 The International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) 15th Conference of The International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) Improving Statistics and Purchasing Power Parities in the Gulf Region to Inform Policy Making Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
The session was presented with speakers from the United Arab Emirates Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA) and the World Bank. The session discussed efforts underway to improve statistics in general, and PPPs in particular, in the Gulf region. It examined the uses of PPPs and their applications to better inform policy-making and poverty measurement. The session highlighted the work undertaken by the United Arab Emirates in these areas.
October 13-14, 2016. Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics Sub-national PPPs, and Real GDP and Living Condition Comparisons   Nanchang
Researchers and experts discussed the latest developments on methods for the compilation of sub-national PPPs and the measurement of real GDP and comparisons of living conditions across cities and provinces. 
July 13, 2016 The World Bank Hands-on poverty measurement training PPP methodology Washington DC
Nada Hamadeh made a lecture for World Bank economists on PPP methodology, recent results and findings and future rolling survey approach.
June 20-21, 2016 The World Bank The Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) Data and Development Washington DC
Roberto Rigobón highlighted the ICP in his keynote speech, indicating the importance of the program. Moreover, a paper using ICP data and entitled “Is Living in African Cities Expensive?” was presented and discussed.
May 31- June 3, 2016 The National Statistical Institute of Spain (INE) and Eurostat European Conference on Quality and Official Statistics Quality of International Statistics: The Challenges for International Statistics at Global, National and Local Levels Madrid, Spain
A paper entitled “Quality Assurance Procedures for Estimating Purchasing Power Parities” was presented. The conference was attended by European and non-European statistical officials from over 60 countries.
May 2-4, 2016 The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the International Labor Organisation (ILO) Group of Experts on Consumer Price Indices (CPI)  Session 6: Synergies between CPIs and PPPs and integration of survey activities Geneva
A session on the synergies between CPIs and PPPs featured contributions from the national statistical offices of South Africa, Morocco, and West Bank & Gaza, as well as CIS-STAT, UNECLAC, and UNESCWA. 
March 30, 2016 The World Bank The Future of Price Statistics: Innovations in Data, Technology, and Methods (ICP brief page)  (Live page) Washington DC
The seminar brought together key actors from national statistical offices, private sector, international agencies, and academia to discuss how technological advancements and new data sources can be used to generate a fuller range of price statistics to better measure economic activity
March 2, 2016 The World Bank Welfare Monitoring and Statistical Capacity Global Solutions Group. Leveraging Innovations for Closing Gaps in Price Data Washington DC
Nada Hamadeh and Marko Rissanen delivered a BBL that discussed preliminary findings from a pilot study that is examining whether modern ICT can be utilized to augment the availability of detailed price data that can inform international, regional and sub-national price comparisons, as well as research on spatial price differences and poverty analysis.
January 21, 2016 The World Bank Transport and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Global Practice Open Data for Development: Lessons Learned and Predicted Trends. Washington DC
Marko Rissanen of the World Bank presented “A pilot study to capture price data using modern ICT.” The discussion focused on how modern ICT can help improve the availability of price data and statistics.
November 30, 2015 The World Bank Measuring Global Poverty: Past, Present, and Future Washington DC
Francisco Ferreira of the World Bank’s Development Economics Research Group presented the policy talk. The event focused on the international absolute poverty line, as well as PPP exchange rates used to compare standards of living across countries.
July 26-31, 2015 The International Statistical Institute The 60th International Statistical Institute World Statistics Congress The International Comparison Program: Results of the 2011 Round and the Way Forward. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The World Bank organized the session which included various presentations that covered understanding the results of the ICP 2011, application of PPPs for poverty analysis, the impact of the new 2011 PPPs on the PPP time series, recommendations of the ICP 2011 evaluation and the way forward.
July 7-9, 2015 The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre Crowdsourcing Food Prices in Africa - Technical Inception Brussels, Belgium
Participants discussed innovative information-gathering methods to tackle food security challenges. The workshop was attended by international development agencies, the private and non-profit sectors, and academic institutions. Topics included strategies for collecting Africa’s food price data, ICT networks in Africa, and more.
June 18, 2015 The World Bank Preferences, Inequality and Purchasing Power Parity: Analytical Framework and Preliminary Results on 2011 ICP Washington DC
Ranjan Ray presented his work on Preferences, Inequality and PPPs.
May 22-23, 2015 National Bureau Of Economic Research (NBER) The International Comparisons of Income, Prices and Production conference Prague, Czech Republic
Sessions covered international comparisons of living standards and prices; collecting prices across borders; wages and prices over time and space; and housing, prices, and output accounting. Among others, a presentation was made on the World Bank initiatives on PPP applications.
April 22, 2015 The World Bank Hands-on Poverty Measurement Training – PPPs   Washington DC
The ICP team conducted this short training for World Bank economists on PPP methodology and recent results and findings.
March 11, 2015 The Center for Global Development Research in Progress   Washington DC
Anna Diofasi and Alan Gelb presented their research on the cross-country patterns of PPPs which is being further developed in their working paper “What Determines Purchasing-Power Parity Exchange Rates?”.
January 20, 2015 The World Bank Workshop on Global Poverty Monitoring and the 2011 ICP Purchasing Power Parity Indices Washington DC
A detailed examination of ICP 2011 data enabled discussion about the best way in which to incorporate the new results into the World Bank’s ongoing global poverty monitoring work.
September 17, 2014 The World Bank ICP Multichannel Data Dissemination System   Washington DC
Discussion related to the release of the ICP 2011 results in terms of media coverage, blogs and institutional coverage, academic and institutional uses, country coverage, as well as categories and variables published.
September 1-3, 2014 Polo Universitario Aretino and the Department of Statistics, University of Florence Inter-Country and Intra-Country Comparisons of Prices and Standards of Living Arezzo-Florence, Italy
A roundtable discussion on the future of ICP specifically discussed the lessons learned and recommendations for the future.
August 29, 2014 International Association for Research in Income and Wealth (IARIW) The 33rd General Conference of the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth (IARIW) Measuring the Size and the Structure of the World Economy - Part II Rotterdam, the Netherlands
The session covered materials including: Penn World Tables; econometric estimation and aggregation of PPPs of components of GDP; space-time inconsistency of SNA; intra and inter-country food PPPs; subnational PPPs; as well as inequality and poverty in Africa.
August 28, 2014 International Association for Research in Income and Wealth (IARIW) The 33rd General Conference of the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth (IARIW) Measuring the Size and the Structure of the World Economy - Part I Rotterdam, the Netherlands
The session covered materials tied into the ICP such as: methodological innovations, results and findings of the 2011 round; comparing hospital prices and volumes across countries; regional price parities and real income for the US; revisions to global income comparisons; inequality in global production and trade; and an index approach to assess the reliability of PPPs in China.
July 9, 2014 The World Bank PPPs and Global Poverty: Understanding the ICP Roller Coaster Washington DC
Martin Ravallion, Edmond D. Villani lectured about his upcoming paper, “An Exploration of the International Comparison Program’s New Global Economic Landscape.”
June 16, 2014 The World Bank The Measurement of PPPs and the Measurement of Poverty with Angus Deaton Washington DC
Deaton discussed the difference in the ICP 2011 results from those that were anticipated from extrapolation of the ICP 2005 results. Deaton presented his findings.
May 15, 2014 The World Bank Poverty and Inequality Measurement and Analysis Practice Group 2011 PPPs: The nuts and bolts   Washington DC
The seminar discussed the methodology and processes underlying the calculation of the 2011 PPPs
November 8, 2013 The World Bank Africa Statistics Practice Group Promoting Quality Statistics for Africa’s Progress International Comparison Program for measuring Africa’s progress Washington DC
The ICP Team Leader made a presentation on the International Comparison Program and its application within Africa, the upcoming release of the results of the 2011 round of the program, and the way ahead.
November 6, 2013 The Washington Statistical Society Measuring the Real Size of the World Economy - Methodology and Challenges The Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington DC
The ICP Global Manager, the co-Chair of the Technical Advisory Group and a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania briefed participants on the conceptual framework of the ICP and presented an overview of the statistical methods used to estimate Purchasing Power Parities, changes made from the ICP 2005 round, and the possible impact on the final ICP 2011 results.
August 25-30, 2013 The International Statistical Institute The 59th International Statistical Institute World Statistics Congress Measuring the real size of the world economy: Methodological and quality improvements of the International Comparison Program Hong Kong, China
Members of the Technical Advisory Group, Regional Coordinators as well as Global Office staff contributed and presented papers.

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