Comparability of economic growth estimates during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a large-scale disruption to economies worldwide, including the provision of health and education services. As the latter often concern non-market output, the question has been raised whether differences in the method used for measurement of non-market output and gross value added (GVA) may have affected cross-country comparability of economic growth rates. A joint study by the UK ONS and the OECD in 2022 based on preliminary data for a small number of countries already found that methodological differences only seem to play a minor role. This paper builds on this analysis, focusing on results up to 2023, incorporating more information at more granular levels of detail and expanding it to a wider range of countries. Using a regression analysis and analyses of variance, this research finds that the estimation method used to measure volume estimates of non-market health care services affected cross-country comparability of gross value added of the health care industry during the COVID-19 years. Similar results are not found for education services nor for total economic growth, suggesting that differences in methods for non-market output did not affect international comparability at an aggregated level.