Task Force on Seasonal Adjustment of Quarterly National Accounts Second meeting Item 6 Chain-linking and seasonal adjustment: Overview of national practices Luis Biedma and Martin Eiglsperger Frankfurt, 23-24 April 2007

2 Background Mandate: “Review … existing recommendations that may be affected by the introduction of chain-linked QNA volume measures …” Questionnaire on chain-linking and seasonal adjustment practices (TF-SAQNA-14) Replies received from BE, BG, CZ, DE, EE, ES, FR, IT, LT, HU, NL, AT, PT, SK and FI Replies from SE and the UK pending

Chain-linking and benchmarking of raw QNA 3 Chain-linking and benchmarking of raw QNA Annual overlap BE, CZ, DE, ES, FR, IT, LT, HU, SK, FI → raw QNA and ANA are consistent Quarterly overlap AT, UK → consistency of raw QNA and ANA forced Over-the-year approach BG (GDP only), NL and SE (will change to annual overlap in summer 2007) → only small discrepancies between raw QNA and ANA Chain-linking not yet implemented: EE

Input for chain-linked QNA series 4 Input for chain-linked QNA series If temporal disaggregation techniques are used, they are applied on annual chain-linked series by most of the replying countries series in average previous year’s prices by DE, SK Seasonal adjusted chain-linked QNA series are obtained via adjusting chain-linked QNA series by most of the replying countries indicator series (monthly or quarterly) by BE, ES, FR, IT and PT

Balancing / consistency 5 Balancing / consistency Consistency of unadjusted and adjusted QNA (production, expenditure and income side) EE, PT and SK allow for discrepancies for unadjusted data Others compile residual series, in most cases changes in inventories and operating surplus Balancing is mostly done for level data; FI has a special focus on growth rates, allowing for small discrepancies between output and expenditure data Balancing is conducted after adjustment by ES, FR, IT and PT Balancing / consistency of adjusted QNA Done by BE, DE, ES, IT and PT Not done by BG, CZ, HU, LT, AT and FI

Direct and indirect adjustment 6 Direct and indirect adjustment Indirect adjustment of GDP BE, ES, FR, IT, PT and the UK Direct adjustment of GDP All other replying countries Adjustment of series in current prices, volume and deflator series All countries adjust two series and derive the third one; PT: depending on the format of source data DE and AT derive adjusted series in current prices, others derive deflators