Tips for a better use of the OECD Annual National Accounts statistics

The Annual National Accounts database (ANA database) gives a complete set of annual national accounts. It is divided into seven main categories:

1. GDP and components (GDP following the expenditure, output and income approaches, Purchasing power parities (PPPs) and exchange rates)
2. National accounts at a Glance (NAAG Chapters 1 till 9)
3. Income, consumption, saving and borrowing (Final consumption expenditure of households (COICOP 2018 and 1999), Disposable income and net lending/net borrowing, Household’s distributional statistics)
4. Production, employment and investment (Population and employment, Labor input by activity, Value added by activity, Capital formation by activity, Balance sheet for non-financial assets by institutional sectors)
5. Pensions (Social insurance pensions)
6. Non-financial accounts including sector accounts (presents the complete set of national accounts by institutional sector)
7. Government non-financial accounts (Taxes, Expenditure by function (COFOG), Deficit/ surplus, expenditure, revenue, and main aggregates)

The Annual National Accounts database on OECD Data Explorer provides data for all OECD member states, key partner countries and groups of countries such as the European Union or the total of OECD member states. Most timeseries start in 1970, yet some series are also available from 1950 onwards. The data can generally be selected according to following dimensions (depending on the type of table): reference area, transaction, unit of measure, time period, institutional sector, economic activity, non-financial assets¹ and expenditure (detailed by COICOP or COFOG). Data are expressed in millions (national currencies, US dollars, hours worked), thousands (persons, jobs), index, growth rate, or unit (PPPs). 

Data is collected through questionnaires covering the different tables. For the European Union - OECD member states, data is collected by the Eurostat questionnaires, whereas the non-European member states, accession and key partner countries receive OECD-specific questionnaires. The questionnaires are sent by OECD once a year, in June.

All OECD member states compile their accounts according to the 2008 System of National Accounts (2008 SNA).

Data release dates vary across countries. EU countries usually publish the main aggregates between February and April. More detailed breakdowns are reported in October. Fixed assets broken down by industry and product are released after 24 months. Non-European OECD countries loosely follow this schedule: Japan releases data in February, Canada and New Zealand in March, Colombia, Costa-Rica, Chile and Türkiye in April, Israel and Korea in September, Australia, Mexico and USA in November.

The data are revised on a regular basis, usually two or three times a year. In general, revisions depend on the national statistics institutes’ changes or adjustments. Revisions mainly concern the last three years and reflect readjustments of previous estimates. Besides the regular adjustment of data, exceptional revisions (so called benchmark revisions) can occur, for instance due to changes in methodologies or sources. When this is the case, the OECD incorporates the new data into a blank version to clearly distinguish the new version from the old one. This may also lead to a reduced coverage of the time period until the country is able to submit historical data in accordance with the new methodology. Main aggregates, however, are linked to former data to provide users with longer time series in the meantime.

The metadata in the database provide country specific information on the sources and methodology and can be accessed by clicking the “i” next to the country name (i.e., the reference area) or the transaction.

The price base covers the valuation of the data (current prices, chain linked volumes, previous year prices, etc.) and the unit of measure expresses for instance if the data is in national currency, converted to US dollars using purchasing power parities or exchange rates. It also specifies if the data is presented as an index, in percentage change, etc. The transformation would specify is the series is shown as a growth rate.

Current prices (also called nominal values), record transactions using the prices actually observed in each period.

Over time, the value of GDP value can be affected by both changes in quantities and price changes. The drawback of looking at changes in GDP at current prices is that it can give the false impression that quantities have changed, while in reality it was due to a change in price (inflation or deflation).

Constant prices (also called volume measures) revalue transactions by removing the effect of price changes, thereby isolating the changes in quantities or volumes.

There exist two ways of measuring volume estimates: revalue transactions using the prices of a fixed base year (oftentimes referred to as constant prices) and chain linked estimates where each year’s prices are used to revalue the next year’s quantities.

Chain linked estimates are more accurate for measuring volume than using a fixed base year because they use the previous year price structure (and thereby are closer to the price structure of the studied year). The problem with chain linked estimates is that additivity is lost (so that an aggregate is no longer equal to the sum of its components), and that they cannot be directly applied for transactions presenting positive and negative data (such as inventories). Despite these drawbacks, the SNA recommends the use of annual chain-linking for deriving time series.

In the database, the volume measure depends on the country's submission to the OECD. All OECD member countries present chain linked estimates with the exception of Mexico which releases constant prices. A country note gives details about the method, reference year etc. of the particular country, and is accessible by clicking on the blue “ï” next to the country’s name.

Each country applies its own national reference year, which varies across countries. By selecting the price base “chain linked volume” - coded "L" - users can view the national reference year. To ascertain comparability, the price base “chain linked volume (rebased)” - coded "LR" - displays all data at the same OECD reference year, which is currently 2020.

For more information on Annual National Accounts data please consult Frequently asked questions.

List of price bases

List of units of measures

List of transformations

1. The full name of this dimension is financial instruments and non-financial assets.