The evolution of prices the basket of goods and services that reflect the consumption of households is tracked through two main indices, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Harmonized Index for Consumer Prices (HICP). The methodology for the construction of the two indices is similar, but there are two differences:

a) The CPI basket covers the consumption expenditures of permanent residents of Greece while the HICP covers the consumer expenditures of both permanent residents and visitors to Greece, including tourists. The HICP provides a better comparison of the evolution of consumer prices across European countries.

b) In the CPI, the weights for each good or service are calculated using data from the Household Budget Survey (HBS) while the HIPC uses data from HBS and from the National Accounts. This is a technical difference.

The next graph presents the evolution of consumer prices according to these two indices (and shows that the differences are very minor).

The prices of some goods in the consumer basket are very volatile, particularly energy and food prices. An alternative index that is more stable (as compared to CPI and HICP) is the core index of consumer prices which measures the evolution of all prices except for energy and food. The purpose of the core index is to highlight the presence of inflationary pressures in the economy, which are not attributed to transitory fluctuations of energy and food prices.

The following graph presents the evolution of the harmonized index of consumer prices, the consumer price index, the core price index, the price of energy, and the price of food.

Consumer prices for different types of goods and services might evolve differently over time. The next graph presents the evolution of prices of goods and services separately.

The next graph presents the evolution of prices separately for each detailed group of goods and services.