The Istat 2020 basket changes, the one on the basis of which price increases or decreases are determined and the inflation trend is calculated. Electric scooters and sushi conquer a new place in the basket where, if there are new entries, there are however no product releases as there are no obsolete products - for now - to be eliminated.
For transport, electric and hybrid electric cars and electric scooters stand out and, among the restaurant services, take-away sushi and home delivery of meals. The beard and mustache service, beauty treatments for men and hearing aids, as well as shirt washing and ironing and the application of semi-permanent nail polish also enter the basket. No product leaves the basket in 2020 since all those already present show no signs of obsolescence such as to justify their exclusion, explains the institute.
But how is the price index detected? In the 2020 basket used to calculate the Nic (for the entire national community) and Foi (for blue and white collar households) indices, there are 1.681 elementary products (1.507 in 2019), grouped into 993 products, in turn grouped into 410 aggregated. For the calculation of the Ipca index (harmonised at European level), a basket of 1.700 elementary products is used (1.524 in 2019), grouped into 1.012 products and 414 aggregates.
In 2020, 80 municipalities contribute to the inflation estimate for the full basket (79 in 2019); the territorial coverage of the survey is equal to 83,2% in terms of provincial population. Territorial coverage rises to 90,3% for a subset of products (tariffs and some local services), whose weight on the Nic basket is 5,6%, for which 12 other municipalities carry out the price survey.
Between outlets, businesses and institutions, there are around 43 survey units present in the municipalities, and around 8 homes where rents are surveyed.
