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OECD Economic Outlook
Select the Annex Table below you want to obtain information about
Table 1 Real GDP
Table 2 Nominal GDP
Table 3 Real private consumption expenditure
Table 4 Real public consumption expenditure
Table 5 Real total gross fixed capital formation
Table 6 Real gross private non-residential fixed capital formation
Table 7 Real gross private residential fixed capital formation
Table 8 Real total domestic demand
Table 9 Foreign balance contributions to changes in real GDP
Table 10 Output gaps
Annex Table 1 - Real GDP
Definition: Value-added in the total economy in volume terms. Per cent change from previous period.
Gross domestic product (or GDP) is defined as "... the sum of gross value added of all resident producer units (institutional sectors or, alternatively, industries) plus that part (possibly the total) of taxes, less subsidies, on products which is not included in the valuation of output. The reference to "gross" indicates that consumption of fixed capital is included in the total. In addition to the approach defined above, there are two other alternative methods of deriving GDP. The first of these is by summing the final uses of goods and services (i.e., final consumption, gross fixed capital formation and exports but excluding intermediate consumption measured in purchasers prices, less the value of imports of goods and services). The second method derives GDP by summing primary incomes distributed by resident producer units (i.e. compensation of employees, mixed incomes, gross operating surplus and net taxes on production and imports).
With the change of national account system from SNA68/ESA79 to SNA93/ESA95, an increasing number of OECD countries have switched to a chain-weighted method of computing aggregate output growth (See Annex Table: National accounts reporting systems base-years and latest data updates). The main reason for this change of method is that it allows real output growth to be measured more precisely than with the traditional method that uses a fixed set of prices. In periods of substantial economic changes characterised by rapid relative price movements (e.g. a continuous fall of computer prices or strong fluctuations of oil prices), estimates of real GDP growth can be significantly biased if they are based on a fixed set of weights that are years out of date. Categories of expenditures with declining relative prices tend to grow faster in volume terms (since people buy more of something that is getting cheaper); the further back the base year, the larger the weight on these categories and so the faster is the estimated growth rate of real output. This problem of sensitivity of real GDP estimates to a specific base year is eliminated by the chain-weighted method as the base year is continuously moving forward.
Despite these advantages, the chain-weighted procedure adds complexity to the production and use of the national account volume data. The main difficulty is that, unlike the traditional fixed-weight index, the chain-weight procedure means that the level of real GDP is not equal to the sum of its components, except for the reference year and the year following. This means that a certain caution is required when using the volume data because of their non-additivity (see Wheelan (2000)) where the implications of the lack of additivity between the real expenditure components and the aggregate real GDP are discussed). Instead, the adding-up identity holds in growth rate terms: with chain-weight series, the real GDP growth is computed as a weighted average of the growth of its components. The weighting structure, which is moving, takes into account the change in relative prices of each component. The exact formulae depends specifically on the choices of Laspeyres, Paashe or Fisher chain index used to compute the real GDP aggregate as well as on the frequency of the series. For the treatment of the chain-weighted data in the Economic Outlook, see the Economic Outlook Database Inventory.
Related links: National Accounts, The 1993 System of National Accounts, Glossary and The United Nations Technical note on National Accounts
Last updated: 20 February 2006
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Annex Table 2 - Nominal GDP
Definition: Value-added in the total economy in current prices. Per cent change from previous period.
Related links: National Accounts, The 1993 System of National Accounts, Glossary and The United Nations Technical note on National Accounts
Last updated: 20 February 2006
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Annex Table 3 - Real private consumption expenditure
Annex Table 4 - Real public consumption expenditure
Annex Table 5 - Real total gross fixed capital formation
Annex Table 6 - Real gross private non-residential fixed capital formation
Annex Table 7 - Real gross private residential fixed capital formation
Definition: The adoption of new national account systems, SNA93 or ESA95, has been proceeding at an uneven pace among OECD member countries, both with respect to variables and the time period covered. As a consequence, there are breaks in many national series. Moreover, a growing number of countries are using chain-weighted price indices to calculate real GDP and expenditures components. The figures on individual demand components follow, in general, the SNA definitions. Private consumption expenditure: Final consumption expenditure of households and private non-profit institutions serving households. Gross fixed capital formation: The outlays (purchases and own-account production) of industries, producers of government services and producers of private non-profit services to households, on additions of new durable goods (commodities) to their stocks of fixed assets less their net sales of similar second-hand and scrapped goods. Some countries, United States, Canada and France use hedonic price indices to deflate current-price values of investment in certain information and communication technology products such as computers. National account data do not always have a sectoral breakdown of investment expenditures, and for some countries data are estimated by the OECD.
Related links: OECD National Accounts, The 1993 System of National Accounts, Glossary and The United Nations Technical note on National Accounts
Last updated: 20 February 2006
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Annex Table 8 - Real total domestic demand
Definition: Total final domestic demand - in turn defined as final consumption and investment expenditures in the private and general government sectors - plus stock building.
Related links: National Accounts, The 1993 System of National Accounts, Glossary and The United Nations Technical note on National Accounts
Last updated: 20 February 2006
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Annex Table 9 - Foreign balance contributions to changes in real GDP
Definition: The foreign balance contribution is defined as the difference between the growth in export volumes and import volumes weighted respectively in the additive accounts by the share of export and import volumes in real GDP of the previous period, and in the chain-weighted accounts by the share nominal exports and imports in nominal GDP of the previous period.
Related links:
Last updated: 20 February 2006
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Annex Table 10 - Output gaps
Definition: The output gap is measured as the percentage difference between actual GDP in constant prices, and estimated potential GDP. The latter is estimated using a production function approach for all countries except Portugal, taking into account the capital stock, changes in labour supply, factor productivity and underlying non-accelerating wage rates of unemployment or the NAWRU for each Member country. Potential output for Portugal is calculated using a Hodrick-Prescott filter of actual output. It should be stressed that the estimated levels of potential output are subject to significant margins of error. See Giorno et al. (1995) and Turner et al. (1996).
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Last updated: 20 February 2006
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