Price Measures in Education and Training: Opening a Discussion. Working Paper No. 53

The purpose of this project was to review the use of price measures in education and training and to consider the types of measures that could be applied. There are several contexts in which price measures are needed and the context will affect the type of measure of price change that is needed. Section 1 of the report discusses budget estimates and planning accountability for efficient and equitable use of funds; and research involving consideration of resources. Section 2 is an overview of the major forms of price indexes. Section 3 reports on the current use made by national authorities of measures of price changes in relation to education expenditure. Section 4 reviews the current use of price deflators with a view to the most appropriate index for the particular purpose. Section 5 considers price measures for the wage and non-wage components of vocational education training (VET) expenses and their limitations for the purposes specified. Summary and concluding comments are presented in Section 6. Two appendices are included: (1) Review of Selected Price Measures and their Limitations; and (2) Selected CPI Groups, Sub-Groups and Expenditure Classes. (Contains 7 footnotes, 5 boxes and 9 tables.)