Template:Inflation/doc

This template calculates inflation based on several inflation index data sets. The template uses an identification code for an inflation  (usually a country code), an original , an original   and either a specific reference   or by default the latest currently available end year, and calculates the equivalent value from historical economic changes between the original and reference years. For example, this template calls the United States inflation table located in the sub-template Template:Inflation/US/dataset to perform the U.S. calculation.

Aside from a convenient way to calculate values from different specified time periods, this template allows a regularly automatically updated calculation of value based on the most recent available inflation data. Whenever inflation tables are updated, potentially annually, all articles using this template have their displayed values updated accordingly.

For US currency, a simplified wrapper template exists, USDCY, which turns e.g. " " into "".

Usage
The supported countries are listed below, with their  and available data periods:

Parameters

 * index (parameter 1), required, an index code for one of several available inflation indexes.
 * value (parameter 2), required, original price or value from which to base the inflation calculation on. Will ignore any commas, but must not have a currency symbol.
 * start_year (parameter 3), required, original year from which to base the inflation calculation on. Must be a year available in the chosen inflation index. As an exception to this, if the current year is specified and no  is specified, the template will output   unchanged, as it can be assumed an inflation of zero.
 * end_year (parameter 4), optional, reference year for which to calculate inflation. Must be higher (later) than , but not higher than the highest (most recent) year available in the chosen inflation index, and will default to the highest (most recent) available year if omitted.
 * digit sets the digits to which the value must be rounded. A negative value indicates rounding to an upper significant digit, and a positive value indicates a fractional digit including trailing zeros. Defaults to, i.e., without cents.
 * c will insert thousands separator commas into the calculated value.
 * eq will show an equivalent-to phrase, in the format, "equivalent to  in". Uses thousands separator commas.
 * cursign will set the currency symbol to be shown. Only functions when eq is used. Can use advanced symbol formats, but can only precede the calculated value. Default is.
 * yes will display the original value too, with the currency sign provided.

Examples
It is possible to use the template in incorrect ways without producing error messages. Please read the warnings and appropriate uses of this template at the beginning of the template description.
 * ✅  → US$595
 * ✅  → US$595
 * ✅  → $21 million (equivalent to $ million in )
 * ✅  → $ in
 * ✅  → US$595
 * ✅  → US$595
 * ✅  → $21 million (equivalent to $ million in )
 * ✅  → $ in
 * ✅  → $21 million (equivalent to $ million in )
 * ✅  → $ in
 * ✅  → $ in
 * ✅  → $ in


 * ❌  →  (Omitting the cursign parameter will show the $ symbol by default, which is the wrong currency symbol for British currency)
 * ❌  → $595 ($ today) (Misleading time reference)
 * ❌  → $595 ($ in 2024) (Misleading time reference)
 * ❌  → $100 ($ adjusted for inflation) (Misleading time reference)
 * ✅  → $595
 * ✅  → $595 (equivalent to $ in )
 * ❌  → Jane Doe amassed a fortune of $1 billion in 1975, making her worth $ billion in. (CPI is not for personal wealth of the wealthy – use GDP deflator instead)
 * ❌  → Jane Doe amassed a fortune of $1 billion in 1975, equivalent to $ billion in. (CPI is not for personal wealth of the wealthy – use GDP deflator instead)
 * ✅  → Jane Doe amassed a fortune of $1 billion in 1975, equivalent to $ billion in
 * ✅  → Jane Doe amassed a fortune of $1 billion in 1975, equivalent to $ billion in

Entering invalid parameters or omitting required parameters will result in an error message and categorization into Category:Pages with errors in inflation template.


 * ❌  →  (see the Limitations section below)
 * ❌  →  (see the Limitations section below)
 * ❌  →  (see the Limitations section below)
 * ❌  →  (see the Limitations section below)
 * ❌  →  (see the Limitations section below)
 * ❌  →  (see the Limitations section below)
 * ❌  →  (see the Limitations section below)
 * ❌  →  (see the Limitations section below)
 * ❌  →  (see the Limitations section below)

Currency conversion
Many datasets are currency agnostic, which means they don't convert between different currencies (or for currency redenominations). Thus, if you wanted to know today's equivalent value of 1,000.00 Austrian schillings in 1960, entering would provide a result  still in schillings, not in euros.

Consequently, if you need a result in a currency other than the one in which the original value is stated, for now you must do the conversion manually, as in the following example which uses the defined conversion rate of 13.7603 schillings to one Euro:



Instead of manually inputting a conversion for the Euro from a national currency, it is possible to divide by instead; for conversion to USD, use.

Some datasets are not currency agnostic; check the sources for each dataset to determine this.

A currency conversion template to ease these conversion tasks is planned. This section will be updated accordingly once it's developed.

Non-decimal inputs
The template does not accept non-decimal inputs such as £sd; these must be decimalized beforehand. For example, if you wanted to know the value of three shillings and sixpence (3s 6d) Sterling in 1950 in 2018, you must convert to the appropriate decimal value (in this case £0.175) for use in the template:



For £sd specifically Pounds, shillings, and pence can be used to convert to decimal. For other non-decimal currencies, such as the old Indian rupee, templates can be made for decimalization upon request.





Rounding
By default the values are calculated to the unit, as for all but very low values cents are undesirable. You can specify rounding with the r parameter which determines the number of decimals. To obtain cents use 2, but other values can be used, including negative ones: -3, for example, will round to the nearest thousand, -6 to the nearest million, and so on. It is advisable to avoid false precision; even if the start value is known to be exact, the template's result will not be because the inflation index tables are rarely accurate to more than about 1%, and a granularity of whole years is used.

Very large results
Very large results are expressed in scientific notation ("1.2E+14" instead of "120000000000000") which is normally not desirable. A workaround is to express the value to be inflated with fewer digits, adding a multiplier text such as "trillion" after the result, using the "Show preview" button as many times as needed, changing parameters until the best result is found:


 * ❌  → $ thousand
 * ✅  → $ million
 * ✅  → $ billion
 * ✅  → $ trillion
 * ✅  → $ billion
 * ✅  → $ trillion

The following section provides an automated way of avoiding this trial and error scenario.

Format price
is a template specifically designed to display price values, both big and small, in a readable way. For example, instead of showing the whole of a huge number such as "953,783,409,856.12", it would show it as "", while small numbers have their cents part appearing as expected, "1234.5" being properly shown as "".


 * ✅  → DM
 * ✅  → DM
 * ✅  → DM

Citing inflation data sources
It's a good practice to provide a valid reference for the prices calculated with this template in articles where it's used. The template country was developed to ease this task. It accepts as its single parameter the same country codes used here, and will generate one or more appropriate footnotes. Typically, this is how a piece of text using it looks like:



Resulting in this converted code (notice the footnote link at the end):


 * In 1985 a unit cost on average $1,040. This is.

The footnote thus generated appears whenever or   is used in an article, usually in its "References" section. See below for the live example in this document's own References section, or click the above generated footnote to jump to it.

Limitations

 * 1) Currently it isn't possible to "de-inflate" a value to what it would have been in a previous year. If you need this functionality, please request it at the talk page. Adding it won't be difficult, but there's no point in doing so before someone actually needs it.
 * 2) Substitution isn't supported at all. Trying to   would only result in a long sequence of embedded parser code without any direct benefit. If you need to obtain an inflated price only once, please use the special ExpandTemplates page then copy the result and paste it at the desired location.

Developer documentation
An inflation series represents templates in the following categories: Modifications need to be made to: Current subpages:
 * Template:Inflation/index
 * Template:Inflation/index/dataset
 * Template:Inflation/index/startyear
 * Template:Inflation/doc/index (Which is then displayed at Inflation/name/dataset as the documentation, and needs to refer to the original data source)
 * Template:Inflation/fn
 * Template:Inflation/year

Useful sources

 * Historical Prices and Wages (HPW): Datafiles: Includes inflation 1800–2000, which has data for a very large number of countries, most dating back to the early 20th century and ending in 2007, and various other very long term datafiles.
 * Global Price and Income History Group: Partially duplicates the above sources, but has a lot of pre-1950s data on many parts of the world
 * Bank of International Settlements: Has long term data for more than 50 countries and is updated regularly.

TemplateData
{	"params": { "value": { "aliases": [ "2"			],			"label": "Value", "description": "Original price or value from which to base the inflation calculation on. Will ignore any commas.", "example": "1000", "type": "number", "required": true },		"start_year": { "aliases": [ "3"			],			"label": "Start year", "description": "Original year from which to base the inflation calculation on. Must be a year available in the chosen inflation index. As an exception to this, if the current year is specified and no 'End year' is specified, the template will output value unchanged, as it can be assumed an inflation of zero.", "example": "1975", "type": "number", "required": true },		"index": { "aliases": [ "1"			],			"label": "Index", "description": "An index code for one of several available inflation indexes. One of AU, AU-road, BD, CA, DE, IN, JP, PH, PK, UK, UK-GDP, US, US-GDP, ZAR, and various others.", "example": "US", "type": "string", "required": true },		"end_year": { "aliases": [ "4"			],			"label": "End year", "description": "Reference year for which to calculate inflation. Must be higher (later) than 'Start year', but not higher than the highest (most recent) year available in the chosen inflation index, and will default to the highest (most recent) available year if omitted.", "example": "2015", "type": "number" },		"r": { "label": "Number of digits", "description": "Sets the digits to which the value must be rounded. A negative value indicates rounding to an upper significant digit, and a positive value indicates a fractional digit including trailing zeros. Defaults to 0. When used in mainspace, this should be set to the number of significant figures the source value has.", "example": "1", "type": "number", "default": "0", "required": true },		"fmt": { "label": "Format", "description": "\"c\" will insert thousands separator commas into the calculated value. \"eq\" will show an equivalent-to phrase, in the format, \"equivalent to (cursign)(end_value) in (end_year)\". Uses thousands separator commas.", "example": "eq", "type": "string" },		"cursign": { "label": "Currency sign", "description": "Sets the currency symbol to be shown. Only functions when Format \"eq\" is used. Can use advanced symbol formats, but can only precede the calculated value. Default is $.", "example": "€", "type": "string", "default": "$" }	},	"paramOrder": [ "index", "value", "start_year", "end_year", "r", "fmt", "cursign" ],	"format": "inline", "description": "This template calculates inflation based on several inflation index data sets. \n\nNote that this template defaults to calculating the inflation of Consumer Price Index values: staples, workers' rent, small service bills (doctor's costs, train tickets). For inflating capital expenses, government expenses, or the personal wealth and expenditure of the rich, the US-GDP or UK-GDP indexes should be used, which calculate inflation based on the gross domestic product (GDP) for the United States and United Kingdom, respectively." }