Office for National Statistics
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National Accounts changes: impact on annual real GDP growth
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has yesterday released a group of articles setting out the impact on annual headline real GDP growth of the improvements which will be introduced in the 2014 Blue Book.
The overall package of improvements was described in an article published on 28 April. Further articles on 29 May described the impact on current price GDP from those improvements not related to new international standards( “ESA 2010”, for short), and on 10 June articles were published giving estimates of the impact on the level of current price GDP from the improvements due to the implementation of ESA 2010.
Average annual growth in the headline measure of GDP over the period 1997 to 2009 is currently estimated at 2.2%. It is anticipated that this will not be significantly revised following the changes being made in September 2014. In other words, there are unlikely to be systematic upward or downward revisions to annual growth over the period. However there are likely to be revisions in both directions to individual years, ranging from -1.0 percentage points in 2007 to +1.1 percentage points in 2009.
Annual figures for 2010-2012 GDP will be published on a current price and real basis in mid-August. Quarterly figures for real GDP from 1997 to 2012 will be published in early September.
Other improvements detailed in yesterday’s articles are listed below:
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Improvements to the measurement of Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF) and business investment, which will change the estimate of headline annual GDP growth by between -0.8 percentage points and +0.2 percentage points. The impact on average annual GDP growth is -0.1 percentage points.
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New methods for measuring inventories will change the estimate of headline GDP growth by between -0.5 percentage points and +0.8 percentage points. However, it leads to no impact on average annual GDP growth.
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Re-basing of price indices (such as the Producer Price Index), which has no impact on headline annual GDP growth in 2008 and 2009 is +0.1 percentage points.
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Improvements to the measurement of the real estate, health and public administration industries. These have no impact on headline annual GDP growth in the period 1997 to 2009.
Commenting on yesterday’s releases, ONS Chief Economist Joe Grice said:
“This is the latest instalment of ONS’s programme to set out the nature and impact of the improvements to the National Accounts we are making in September. These improvements are our part of a shared international agenda to ensure ONS continues to measure the UK economy well and to maintain good comparability with other countries. Yesterday’s articles set out the impact of the new methods on annual headline GDP growth.
“As the articles show, there are significant revisions in both directions to estimated growth in individual years between1998 and 2009. Overall, however, there is no change to estimated average annual growth.”
Background notes
- National Accounts changes: impact on annual real GDP growth article is available.
- Media contact:
Media Relations Office 0845 6041858
Emergency on-call 07867 906553
E-mail media.relations@ons.gsi.gov.uk
Website: www.ons.gov.uk - Details of the policy governing the release of new data are available by visiting www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/assessment/code-of-practice/index.html or from the Media Relations Office email: media.relations@ons.gsi.gov.uk
