Quality-Adjusted Price Indexes for Communications Equipment Excel

Release Date: September 9, 2021

With the September 9, 2021 release, the Quarterly Product Price Indexes are extended through 2019Q4. The Annual Product Price Indexes, Annual Industry Price Indexes, and Industry Weights have not been extended or updated.

Beginning with the June 1, 2018 release, (1) product class price indexes were provided covering the full scope of primary products of NAICS 3342 as well as secondary products and miscellaneous receipts, (2) historical data were provided beginning in 1987, (3) company information in the underlying data for several product classes was exploited, (4) the quarterly-frequency price index for enterprise voice networking equipment was discontinued due to lack of source data.

Price Index Data, Descriptions, and Methodology

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Technical Notes

The Federal Reserve categorizes products in the Communications Equipment industry (North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) 3342) using a taxonomy featuring three levels: High-level product classes, Mid-level product classes, and Low-level product classes. This taxonomy follows industry conventions as described in Byrne and Corrado (2015) rather than the NAICS definitions. Each level of the product-class taxonomy comprises the entirety of primary product production of NAICS 3342. The specific types of products within each level of the taxonomy are listed under "Product Class Descriptions”.

Annual product price indexes are provided for 1987 through 2016 for each product class within a given product-class level (see “Annual Product Price Indexes”). The product-class price indexes are constructed to control for quality change; these indexes are most commonly matched-model Fisher chain aggregations of unit values for detailed product categories. In some cases, the product-class price indexes are constructed from model-level detail. In other cases, the product-class price indexes are constructed from unit values that equal the ratio of product-related revenue to either the number of devices shipped or a measure of capacity, such as ports, wavelengths or transponders. The unit values used for detailed product categories within product classes are based on market sales statistics for the U.S. or the global market; that is, the price measures do not distinguish between domestically-produced products and imports. The underlying data for the product price indexes come from a variety of sources, including private vendors, trade groups, government sources, and academic research papers. Further detail for each product class are listed under "Sources and Methods".

Quarterly-frequency product price indexes are available for a set of four product classes that account for only a portion of the industry (see “Quarterly Product Price Indexes”). The price index for data networking equipment covers 1992Q1-2016Q4. The price indexes for fiber optic long-haul equipment and for cell stations cover 2002Q1-2016Q4. The price index for enterprise voice equipment covers 2002Q1-2015Q4. All of the quarterly-frequency product prices indexes are provided on a not seasonally adjusted basis.

The Federal Reserve provides annual industry price indexes for 1987 through 2016 that correspond with the NAICS definitions. Price indexes are available for the NAICS 3342 industry as a whole; for the three six-digit industries (Telephone Apparatus Manufacturing (NAICS 334210), Radio and Television Broadcasting and Wireless Communications Equipment Manufacturing (NAICS 334240), and Other Communications Equipment Manufacturing (NAICS 334290) that compose NAICS 3342; and for primary products, secondary products, and miscellaneous receipts for each of NAICS 334210, NAICS 334240, and NAICS 334290 (see “Annual Industry Price Indexes”). The six-digit (or four-digit) industry price indexes are aggregations of the appropriate subcomponents. The weights used to aggregate primary, secondary, and miscellaneous product prices to industry price indexes are also provided (see “Industry Weights”). These weights are based on production figures from Census reports, including data from the Current Industrial Report for the industry (discontinued after 2011), the Annual Survey of Manufactures, and the Economic Census informed by private data sources. Considerable analyst judgement was exercised to integrate these data sources into a coherent history.

A discussion of the difference between the currently available price indexes and those posted prior to June 1, 2018 is available as a Technical Q&A.

References

Byrne, David M., and Carol A. Corrado (2015). "Prices for Communications Equipment: Rewriting the Record," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-069. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2015.069 Back to Top
Last Update: September 9, 2021