1. sharing economy Jennifer Ribarsky
Head of Sectoral National Accounts, OECD
Task Force on Price and Volumes
Prague, June 2017

2. Sharing economy
Loosely defined concept highlighting exchanges both paid and unpaid in consumption of goods and services and sharing of resources (such as properties or cars)
not new per se, but technology have enabled an unprecedented increase in scale and scope
GDP, at least conceptually, captures all of the related transactions and value-added created for paid activities.
The digital economy tends to be broader. No statistical definition of the digital economy… but the OECD Advisory Expert Group on Measuring GDP in a Digital Economy is tasked with developing what should be included.

3. New forms of intermediation of Peer-to-Peer services
Digital platforms provide intermediation services for supply and demand on product markets
Intermediation services not new, but more pervasive and provided differently:
Taxi reservation service => Uber
Travel agent => Booking.com
Hilton online reservations => Airbnb
Banks =>Peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding

4. Conceptual issues? Margin service provided by intermediator
(Occasional) self-employed providing the relevant service
Delineation between occasional seller of second- hand goods and small-scale trader
Financial intermediation services indirectly measured (FISIM)

5. Measurement issues?
Under-declaration of output by occasional self-employed, but …
… in case of Airbnb existing imputation for owner-occupied dwellings …
… also note that output ≠ value added, final consumption => intermediate consumption

6. Possible solutions
Digital intermediaries are increasingly called to disclose turnover from clients
New approaches to measurement, directly from intermediaries:
Airbnb charges VAT on its service fees, or collects an occupancy tax
Use of credit card data
Big Data

7. Example 2: Consumers as producers

8. Consumers as producers: blurring the production boundary
Internet access by households has led to blurring between household production for market purposes, own account production, consumption, leisure:
Own booking of hotels, flights by households
Self-check in at airports
Self-service at supermarkets
On-line banking
In common: movement from dedicated market producers out of market
Furthermore, households generate free assets: Wikipedia, Linux
Clearly, element of production but also leisure
Not captured in GDP
The pervasiveness of internet access by households has helped to blur the traditional borderlines between household production for market purposes, own account production, consumption, and leisure. Increasingly households are involved in intermediation that would previously have been the almost exclusive preserve of a dedicated intermediary, in other words households are increasingly engaged in activities that would previously have been included in GDP.

9. Issues and solutions Is there a conceptual issue? => No
Joins traditional discussion about unpaid household activities, such as childcare, preparing meals, gardening
Note: Unlikely to resolve productivity and growth puzzle
Value of free digital services provided by Wikipedia, range from % to as much as % of World GDP (OECD-IMF (2017))
Further elaboration in a satellite account type of framework
The increased participation of consumers in activities suggests that there may have been quality changes in the
final services provided, requiring a careful consideration of the implications on volume estimates of GDP

10. ICT-enabled cross-border services
How to classify the transactions?
Do Uber’s cross-border transactions represent business services or transport services?
Difference in classification of the service make little difference to estimates of GDP but it matters for trade rules.
However, differences in classification: service or primary income do matter for GDP.
Should the flows, if they are cross-border, be recorded as the full cost paid by the consumer, or net receipts received by company (e.g. Uber)?

11. Example 5: Prices and volumes

12. Prices and Volumes Price measurement may be a major challenge:
customisation
new goods problem
quality levels and change, e.g. Airbnb versus hotels
But also problematic to capture the impact on the quality of e.g. health and education
Example: software deflators
Source: OECD National Accounts Statistics and OECD Productivity Database, February 2017

13. Price indices for ICT assets and communication services
Average annual growth rate in percentage, (or latest available year)
UK showed increases of nearly 3% per year
Australia and France showed declines of more than 3% per year
Notes: Data reported for Spain for ICT equipment and Computer software and database correspond to the period Data reported for Austria for Communication services correspond to the period
Source: OECD National Accounts Statistics, OECD Productivity Database, OECD Prices and Purchasing Power Parities database, Australian Bureau of Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analyses and Statistics Canada, February 2017

14. Impact on GDP growth, using alternative ICT & communication prices
Belgium shows largest impact
0.4%-points
Most countries show around 0.2%-points
The impact depends on whether the affected products are for final or intermediate uses, and on whether they are imported or domestically produced.
Graph only shows the growth rate adjustment implied by the lower bound price indices because the usual mismeasurement concern is that the official price indices under adjust for quality change.
Scenario I assumes that imports prices are measured well, so that the adjustments made to the price indices affect only volume estimates of final demand. (Shown by red square- this shows the largest impact on GDP growth (upward revision to GDP growth rates).
Scenario II assumes that only import prices are mismeasured and that final demand prices are measured well. (Shown by green triangle- this shows the smallest impact on GDP growth (downward revision to GDP growth rates)
Scenario III gives results in between these 2 extremes by adjusting both the final demand and import price indices. (Shown by purple asterisk- shows upward revision to GDP but not as much as in scenario I).
Under rather strong assumptions
Belgium shows that overall growth rates could be adversely affected by price mismeasurement by as much as 0.4 percent per year (unadjusted GDP growth rate was 1 %, adjusted GDP (red square) 1.4 %).
Implied adjustment are only around 0.2% for most countries.

15. Prices of R&D and Software

16. Prices and volumes for IPP – Sources and methods
Sources and methods to capture price changes include:
Specific IPP surveys, labour cost and input cost surveys, indexes of other countries used as proxies (for instance the BLS producer price index for software industry in the case of 4 countries).
For own account software, many countries use some variation of an input method or use a SPPI.
For R&D, countries can use an index of wage and salary earnings but many countries use the full input method and take into account all relevant input costs (not just wages).
The US is the only country that applies a productivity adjustment to the input cost index for R&D.

17. Thank you for your attention!