Austria - Real Gross Domestic Product

For Austria, quarterly and annual national accounts, including the expenditure approach to gross domestic product, the production approach (gross value added), and the income approach. From 1995.

The source writes:

The National Accounts consist of a closed system of accounts in which key macro-economic variables are shown as transactions or balances (e.g. gross domestic product, gross national income, disposable household income, government’s net lending/borrowing, private consumption, investments), based on the concept of an economic cycle.

The System of National Accounts (SNA 2008) standardises this concept at the international level. A variant tailored specifically to European circumstances is the European System of Integrated Economic Accounts (ESVG 2010 or ESA 2010). While the SNA is in essence a recommendation, the ESA is legally binding (EU Regulation).

Transactions which have a goods dimension (goods and services) are calculated at current and constant prices to measure their change in volume (real growth) by eliminating price changes.

The source writes:

Gross domestic product (GDP) measures the domestic production of goods and services after deduction of intermediate inputs and is obtained from the sum total of contributions by individual economic branches (“gross value added at basic prices”) plus taxes on products less subsidies on products (production approach). However, it can also be represented as the sum total of final use (consumption, investments and exports) minus imports (expenditure approach), or as the sum total of compensation of employees, gross operating surplus/gross mixed income and consumption of fixed capital plus taxes less subsidies on production and imports (income approach).

The allocation of primary income account's balancing item represents the primary income of private households resident in the regional territory. It comprises compensation of employees, operating surplus, mixed income and property income.

Disposal income of households provides an indicator of a region’s prosperity. Among resources the account comprises primary income, social benefits other than social transfers in kind and other current transfers; among uses it comprises current taxes on income, wealth, etc., social contributions and other current transfers.

Gross value added is calculated at basic prices. It is the difference between output at basic prices and intermediate consumption at purchasers' prices (production approach).

Compensation of employees comprises the total remuneration, in cash or in kind, payable by an employer to an employee in return for work done by the latter during the accounting period.

Gross fixed capital formation consists of resident producers' acquisitions, less disposals, of fixed assets during a given period plus certain additions to the value of non-produced assets realized by the productive activity of producer or institutional units. Fixed assets are tangible or intangible assets produced as outputs from processes of production that are themselves used repeatedly, or continuously, in processes of production for more than one year.

GVA is linked as a measurement to gross domestic product (GDP), as both are measures of output. The relationship is defined as:

• GVA + taxes on products - subsidies on products = GDP
• GVA = GDP + subsidies - (direct, sales) taxes
• GDP = (final uses (consumption + investment + exports) - imports
• Distribution of GDP = [(compensation of employees + operating surplus) / (mixed income + depreciation + amortization)] + porduction + imports - subsidies

In the Regional Accounts release for 2014 we have observed the following lags:

• Hours worked below A3 at all geo levels lags 1 period.
• Gross Fixed Capital Formation (all industries) at all geo levels lag 1 period.
• Compensation (all industries) at all geo levels lag 1 period.
• Gross value added (all industries) at the NUTS 3 geo level lags 1 period.
• Gross value added (by industry) for Nuts 0, Nuts 1 and Nuts 2 below A3 lag 1 period.
• Employment (all industries) at the NUTS 3 geo level lags 1 period.
• Employment (by industry) for Nuts 0, Nuts 1 and Nuts 2 below A3 lag 1 period.
• GDP at NUTS3 lags 1 period.

Revisions for the most recent quarters take place with every new publication of the quarterly figures. As flash estimates do not cover the total dataset, their revisional content is limited to that. Theoretically, all those quarterly figures can be revised backwards for which no annual national accounts calculation, estimated independently from quarters, is available at the moment of revision. So, only data in the current and the preceding year are revised at most, if no new annual accounts information comes up. For the regular publication (t+70), the results of the flash estimates are replaced by the regular national accounts estimation. At the time of setting up flash estimates, a revision of the results of the regular calculation of the previous quarter takes place. If new annual data are available, new econometric relationships are estimated on an annual basis. Hence, the quarters of the reference year and those of the preceding years are being revised. In Austria, this procedure is usually done at the same time as calculations for the regular dissemination of the second quarter (in September) are made.

 The annual data is not reported as having revisions.

The source has explained, "According to Annex B of Regulation (EU) 549/2013 (ESA 2010) 'annual and quarterly data in previous year’s prices are not to be provided for reference year 1995'."

At the IMF (SDDS Plus):

• National accounts