Statistics Canada
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Chain Fisher Volume Index - Formulas

The Laspeyres volume index

The best know volume index is Laspeyres. For this index, weighting is done using prices from a predetermined base year:

(1)   
formula01.gif (1157 bytes)
or, the chained version: (2)   
formula02.gif (1204 bytes)

Where:

LV is the Laspeyres volume index for the period t using the base period 0;
p are the price series;
q are the quantity series.

By using the identity C=pq (value equals price multiplied by quantity), formula (2) can be expressed in a more usable form (chained version):

(3)   
formula03.gif (1413 bytes)

rightarrow.gif (904 bytes)

(4)   
formula04.gif (1425 bytes)
hence: (5)   
formula05.gif (1356 bytes)

The Paasche volume index

As well as referring to a point in time in the past, a volume index can be based on prices from the current period. This is known as a Paasche index:

(6)   
formula06.gif (1152 bytes)
and the chained version: (7)   
formula07.gif (1191 bytes)

By performing the same substitutions that we did with the Laspeyres index, we get:

 

(8)   
formula08.gif (1427 bytes)

rightarrow.gif (904 bytes)

(9)   
formula09.gif (1436 bytes)
hence: (10)   
formula10.gif (1370 bytes)

The Fisher volume index

The Fisher volume index is the geometric mean of the Laspeyres and Paasche indexes:

(11)   

formula11.gif (1501 bytes)

The Fisher index carries the property of factorization, that is, the Fisher price index multiplied by the Fisher volume index is equal to the value index:

(12)   

formula12.gif (1003 bytes)

The contribution to percentage change formula

The contribution to percentage change formula which is being used permits the calculation of the contribution of each series to the percentage change of an aggregate series. Unlike the contribution series resulting from ad hoc calculations on constant dollar series, the contributions generated from this formula are fully additive. More specifically, the contribution of a component i to the percentage growth of an aggregate (

cdelta.gif (931 bytes)
) at time t is written:

(13)   

formula13.gif (1725 bytes)

or, in a more usable format:

(14)   

formula14.gif (2398 bytes)

Where:

FVt is the Fisher volume index for the period t and the reference period t-1;
Ct is the current dollar series for the period t;
pt and pt-1 are the prices for the period t and t-1 respectively.

The j index sums represent the most detailed components of the aggregates.