Import parity price explained

Import parity price or IPP is defined as, “The price that a purchaser pays or can expect to pay for imported goods; thus the c.i.f. import price plus tariff plus transport cost to the purchaser's location. This and the export parity price together define a range of the possible equilibrium prices for equivalent domestically produced goods”.[1]

A simpler definition is used by the UN World Food Programme: “The import parity price (IPP) is the price at the border of a good that is imported, which includes international transport costs and tariffs”.[2]

The USAID Market and Trade Glossary definition is: "Import parity price (IPP) – is the monetary value of a unit of product bought from a foreign country, valued at a geographic location of interest in the importing country".[3]

Notes and References

  1. Definition of IPP by the University of Michigan: see http://www-personal.umich.edu/~alandear/glossary/i.html
  2. Definition of IPP used by the UN World Food Program: see http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/manual_guide_proced/wfp187902.pdf
  3. Definition of IPP by USAID: see http://www.fews.net/docs/Publications/FEWS%20NET%20MT%20Glossary_June%202009.pdf