Task Force on Seasonal Adjustment of Quarterly National Accounts Item 1.2 Issues note Martin Eiglsperger Luxembourg, 15 February 2007

2 Review First Task Force on Seasonal Adjustment of Quarterly National Accounts in 2000 – 2002: Final report in January 2002: Recommendations + timetable for their implementation Progress reports to the CMFB in 2003, 2004 and 2006 → Agenda item 3 Mandate of the reconvened Task Force: Further specification of recommendations Investigation of the impact of working-day adjustment

Impact of chain-linking 3 Impact of chain-linking Features of chain-linked raw data: Temporal additivity only for annual overlap Chain-linked components do not add up to the respective aggregate Additive data in previous year’s prices at an intermediate step of the chain-linking procedure → Impact on seasonally adjusted data and, in particular, on benchmarking s.a. results

Action points to the Task Force 4 Action points to the Task Force For discussion: Additivity in previous year’s prices format or chain-linked format? Choice of recent reference years in order to limit non-additivity? Treatment of discrepancies or residual series Relationship of adjustment of volume and current prices series Time (in-)consistency of quarterly data: Implications?

Working-day adjusted series 5 Working-day adjusted series Significant working-day effects in recent years on GDP due to Christmas falling on a weekend and Easter in Q1 Working-day adjustment criticised for “distorting” the underlying development of GDP volume growth  Explaining the concept of working-day adjustment (→ metadata) and providing quantitative information

Action points to the Task Force 6 Action points to the Task Force For discussion: Dissemination of adjusted data under the new Transmission Program Calculation and dissemination of purely working-day adjusted data Implementation plan Treatment of irregular effects

Causes for differences 7 Causes for differences ECB note on seasonal and working-day effects on GDP and expenditure components in six euro area countries In some cases: seasonal and/or working-day profile differ markedly → Small-scale fact-finding for the reasons of the differences

Action points to the Task Force 8 Action points to the Task Force Collection of information about driving factors for a small number of QNA series Implications of different profiles in the context of indirect vs. direct adjustment If conceptual differences are considered relevant, propose further harmonisation

Metadata Reconvened Task Force: Steering Group (SG): 9 Metadata Reconvened Task Force: Review the template created by the TF in 2002 Present the new template at the WG meeting Collect and maintain information Steering Group (SG): More general approach on providing metadata Develop strategy for providing and presenting metadata → Liaise with SG for co-ordination and co-operation