Finland - Nominal Gross Domestic Product

For Finland, the quarterly national accounts, including detailed expenditure, income and production approaches to GDP, in chained and current prices.

The quarterly sector accounts follow the same principles but are broken out by institutional sector. Data Buffet carries the households sector.

Quarterly national accounts

Active:

• National accounts framework: ESA 2010
• Industry classification: TOL 2008, the adaptation of NACE Rev. 2
• Measurements:
  • Millions of euros at chained year-2015 prices (Mil. Ch. 2015 EUR)
  • At current prices (Mil. EUR)
  • Percent change quarter-over-quarter based on real data (% Q/Q Ch. 2015 EUR)
  • Percent change in volume of per working day adjusted series from previous year (% Y/Y, WDA)
• Adjustments:
  • Working day adjusted series from previous year (% Y/Y, WDA)
  • Working day adjusted and seasonally adjusted (WDASA)
  • Not seasonally adjusted (NSA)
• Native frequency: Quarterly
• Start dates:
  • Uniformly 1990Q1 for levels
  • Uniformly 1990Q2 for real growth

Predecessors:

• ESA 2010 at 2010 prices - 1990 to 2020
• ESA 2010 at 2010 prices - 1990 to 2018
• ESA 95 at 2000 prices

Quarterly sector accounts

Active:

• National accounts framework: ESA 2010
• Native frequency: Quarterly
• Start date: 1999Q1

Predecessors:

• ESA 95 - 1999Q1 to 2014Q1 ("_E95")

Annual national accounts

Active:

• National accounts framework: ESA 2010
• Industry classification: TOL 2008, the adaptation of NACE Rev. 2
• Measurements:
  • Millions of euros at constant year-2015 prices (Mil. 2015 EUR)
  • At current prices (Mil. EUR)
• Adjustment: Not applicable
• Native frequency: Annual
• Start dates: 1975, 1980

Predecessor(s):

• At 2010 prices - 1975 to 2022 ("_10")
• ESA 95 - 1975 to 2013 ("_E95")

Annual regional accounts

National accounts

The source writes:

The statistics are produced in accordance with the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010), adopted with a regulation of the EU Council 2013. The economy is described from the perspectives of output, demand and in-come formation. The examination extends to data at current prices and chain-linked volume data where the reference year is 2015. The produced data show how Finland's GDP has developed by quarter, which activities have grown and by how much, whether output has grown because of exports or investments, how the consumption of households has changed from the previous quarter and how much wages and salaries have risen from the previous quarter. The data includes original, seasonally adjusted and trend series. The time series start from the year 1990.

Sector accounts

The source writes:

For Finland, sector accounts are part of national accounts. Sector accounts form a large, uniform whole consisting of the non-financial and financial accounts of each institutional sector. In national accounts, non-financial accounts refer to accounts that are used to describe the value of production activities of goods and services, and the income flows generated by this activity and their progress in the economy. Financial accounts are accounts that describe the stocks of financial assets and liabilities and changes in them. Real and financial accounts are linked to each other, because the deficit or surplus formed of income and expenditure in the non-financial accounts is visible in the financial side of the accounting system as an increase/decrease in assets or liabilities. This statistic focuses on the non-financial account side of sector accounts. It describes each sector’s production, income formation, income distribution, income use and the net lending resulting from these transactions, i.e. the change in the sector's financial position. Financial accounts compile statistics on the financial accounts side of sector accounts.

The upper part of quarterly sector accounts describes production and income formation. It is uniform with industry-specific quarterly accounts. After production and income formation, redistribution of income through taxation, social security contributions and income transfers is described. The sector's saving is derived as a balancing item. The capital account following the income redistribution account describes investments, capital transfers and other formation of real assets. The net lending showing financial surplus/deficit is formed as a difference of all this income and expenditure, which is reflected on the financial side of sector accounts (in financial accounts) as an increase or a decrease in financial assets. The statistical release contains time series from the first quarter of 1999 up to the quarter under review. The data are public.

Quarterly sector accounts are produced using indicators. This means that the development of the components of sector accounts is estimated with indicators that must follow as closely as possible the corresponding components of annual accounts that the indicators are aimed to estimate. In the calculation, the development of these indicators is benchmarked to the annual accounts figures, which makes the components of quarterly and annual accounts congruent. Some common data that are used in annual statistics are also used in the quarterly sector accounts compilation. Parts of the data are therefore uniform with the annual data by default.

The indicators used in the calculation are based on different economic statistics and data produced by Statistics Finland and other agencies.

Quarterly sector accounts depict national accounts using the same concepts and definitions as the annual sector accounts. Quarterly sector accounts are, however, based on indicators and are thus based more on estimates than annual accounts data. Quarterly data are also somewhat more aggregated than annual accounts data.

The compilation of data is based on an EU regulation. The European Central Bank uses national non-financial sector accounts together with financial accounts to compile Euro Area Accounts, which have an important role in, for example, monetary policy. The data content is based on the European System of Accounts ESA95, which complies with the worldwide SNA93 (System of National Accounts) recommendation for national accounts.

Completed three months after the end of each quarter. The time series starts from the year 1999.

Definitions

Volume refers to data adjusted for price changes. One problem with current price estimates is that price fluctuations can often dominate the changes in value. Volume estimates are needed to separate real changes in economic activity from these price changes. That is why the percentage change of GDP is normally dervied from the volume estimates. Volume in national accounts is not simply a measure of quantity because it also comprises changes in quality.

Chain-linking means that the volume data of each year are first calculated at previous year prices. From these the annual volume changes are calculated, which are then linked together to form a chain-linked volume time series. An alternative way of calculating volume series, prior to 2006, is to use a fixed base year.

Further reading

At the source:

• Metadata - Quarterly national accounts
• Table 123h: Income and production by sector and industry, annually, 1975-2023*

At the IMF (SDDS Plus):

• National accounts (Jan 2022 / Jan 2024)

• Jun 2012 - Initial version of national accounts.
• Jan 2014 - Initial version of sector accounts.
• Aug 2014 - Framework advanced to ESA 2010.
• Mar 2021 - Currency reference year advanced to 2015.
• 28 Dec 2022, Phillip Thorne - Properties of sector accounts.
• 22 Aug 2024, Phillip Thorne - Merged two background pages.