Impact of Blue Book 2020 changes on GDP

20 Jul 2020 09:34 PM

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) yesterday published the impact of new methods and sources on gross domestic product (GDP) contained in the Blue Book 2020 that are due to be introduced into headline figures from 30 September 2020.

Overall, the changes slightly reduce annual average real GDP growth between 1998 and 2007 from 3.0% to 2.9%. Average annual growth for 2010 to 2017 remains unrevised at 2.0%. 

The upward effects on GDP growth include various small impacts such as better measurement of the costs paid by businesses building their own premises and the amount of money that schools, colleges and universities invest in buildings and equipment, although all have only a small impact on their own.

The largest downward impacts come from improvements in the measurement of the output of the finance sector, the measurement of the fees associated with the transfer of business and residential properties, and accounting for the costs facing businesses.

The full Impact of Blue Book 2020 changes on current price and chain volume measures gross domestic product estimates, 1997 to 2018 article is available.

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