International Monetary Fund

Data cited at: Consumer price indexes, The International Monetary Fund Consumer price indexes (CPIs) are index numbers that measure changes in the prices of goods and services purchased or otherwise acquired by households, which households use directly, or indirectly, to satisfy their own needs and wants. In practice, most CPIs are calculated as weighted averages of the percentage price changes for a specified set, or ‘‘basket’’, of consumer products, the weights reflecting their relative importance in household consumption in some period. CPIs are widely used to index pensions and social security benefits. CPIs are also used to index other payments, such as interest payments or rents, or the prices of bonds. CPIs are also commonly used as a proxy for the general rate of inflation, even though they measure only consumer inflation. They are used by some governments or central banks to set inflation targets for purposes of monetary policy. The price data collected for CPI purposes can also be used to compile other indices, such as the price indices used to deflate household consumption expenditures in national accounts, or the purchasing power parities used to compare real levels of consumption in different countries.

Data cited at: Coordinated Direct Investment Survey, The International Monetary Fund. The CDIS database presents detailed data on "inward" direct investment positions (i.e., direct investment into the reporting economy) cross-classified by economy of immediate investor, and data on "outward" direct investment positions (i.e., direct investment abroad by the reporting economy) cross-classified by economy of immediate investment. The CDIS database contains breakdowns of direct investment position data, including, in most instances, separate data on net equity and net debt positions, as well as tables that present "mirror" data (i.e., tables in which data from the reporting economy are shown side-by-side with the data obtained from all other counterpart reporting economies).