Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

Rate the ABS website
ABS Home > Statistics > By Catalogue Number
1332.0.55.002 - Statistical Language!, 2008  
Latest ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 27/06/2008  First Issue
   Page tools: Print Print Page Print all pages in this productPrint All RSS Feed RSS Bookmark and Share Search this Product  
Contents >> Index >> When is an index not appropriate?

WHEN IS AN INDEX NOT APPROPRIATE?

Care should be taken when using indexes. Of particular importance is to ensure the items being monitored do not somehow change over time. For instance, the production cost of an item may not have changed over time, yet in reality the size or the quality of the item may have decreased. For example, the diagram below illustrates the widget associated with the price index.

Diagram: Widget changes over time

However it can be seen that in 2007 the widget produced was different from previous years, meaning the index value for 2007 is not necessarily comparable with those of the previous years.


Previous PageNext Page

Bookmark and Share. Opens in a new window

© Commonwealth of Australia 2013

Unless otherwise noted, content on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia Licence together with any terms, conditions and exclusions as set out in the website Copyright notice. For permission to do anything beyond the scope of this licence and copyright terms contact us.