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Methods and standards / Concept Glossary / Reference period of the expenses

Concept selected: Reference period of the expenses

Definition

The reference period of each good or service refers to the duration, in time, with which the observation of the expenditure on said good or service is made to correspond.
In terms of quality, it is very costly to research variables such as expenditure for a long period of time. For these reasons, reference periods are introduced.
Due to both the fatigue factor and the forgetfulness factor, this type of survey is associated with reference periods that, in general, do not ask households about all of their expenses during the entire study period, but rather, during a shorter period, in such a way that, applying a temporary elevation factor, an estimation of household expenditure throughout the study period is obtained.

Notes

Each code of the classification of goods and services is assigned one of the following reference periods:

- Weekly: goods of greater frequency or of small amounts are collected from 2022 for one week.
- Monthly: goods of medium frequency or moderate amount.
- Quarterly: goods of low frequency or high amounts to consider them weekly or monthly.
- Annual: goods of very low frequency or of very high amounts.
- Regular expenses: to collect goods and services paid for on a regular basis, usually through periodic receipts (rent, community expenses, water, schools, etc.). The household is asked for the amount of the last bill paid and the number of bills paid in the last twelve months and thus an annual estimate of household expenditure on the item in question is obtained.
In addition, there are some codes with double reference period because they encompass expenses that can differ significantly both in their frequency and in their form of annotation. For example, if you have a mobile with a prepaid card, the expense is considered weekly and will be recorded during the 7 days of the week, on the contrary, if it is a contract mobile will be paid by receipts on a regular basis. Thus, spending on mobile phones is a code with a double reference period: weekly and last receipt.

Source

Household Budget Survey. Methodology

Topic

Statistical operations

(links to the Inventory of Statistical Operations)

Concepts associated

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