The United States Import Price Index is published by the United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is part of the Office of Prices and Living Conditions. It began as an annual publication, publishing its first index in 1973. It began publishing on a quarterly basis in 1974. A major program milestone occurred in 1982 when the Office of Management and Budget placed the IPP indexes on its list of Principal Federal Economic Indicators together with the Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index. In January 1993, the IPP began the monthly publication of merchandise indexes. The IPP is constantly expanding in its mission to measure the import and export of goods and services to/from the U.S.
The IPP publishes indexes on merchandize categories and selected categories of services. Currently, the IPP publishes monthly air passenger, air freight, ocean liner, and ocean tanker service indexes.
The IPP publishes its merchandize indexes following the Harmonized Classification System, the SITC classification system, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (or END USE) classification system. The IPP will begin publishing based on the North American Industrial Classification System system in the January 2006 news release.
In January 2005, the IPP expanded its Locality of Origin indexes adding a break-out for China. Starting with the January 2006 news release, the IPP will begin publishing import and export indexes based on the NAICS.
One of the primary customers of the IPP is the Bureau of Economic Analysis. They use the Import and Export price indexes to deflate GDP. The IPP is currently headed by William Alterman.