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Quarterly Spanish National Accounts. Base 2008

• 1Contact
  • 1.1Contact organisation
    National Statistics Institute of Spain
    
  • 1.5Contact mail address
    Paseo de la Castellana 183 - 28046 Madrid
    
• 2Metadata update
  • 2.1Metadata last certified
    07/02/2022
  • 2.2Metadata last posted
    29/03/2019
  • 2.3Metadata last update
    07/02/2022
• 3Statistical presentation
  • 3.1Data description

    Quarterly Spanish National Accounts (QSNA) is a short-term synthesis statistical operation whose main objective is to provide a coherent quantitative behavioural description of the Spanish economy as a whole.

    The most important utilities of this statistical operation are providing the base information for the design of economic policies, speeding up the supervision of the measures adopted by economic agents, detecting the stage of the economic cycle and increasing the quality of the short-term statistical system.

    QSNA constitutes a sub-system of the Spanish National Accounts that is fully integrated methodologically and quantitatively:

    • From a conceptual point of view, it adopts the methodology established in the European System Accounts 1995 (ESA 1995), Regulation of the Council 2223/96. In this sense, the concepts, valuation principles and structures are the same as the ones used for the Annual Spanish National Accounts. There are, however, some special features due to the time interval they cover.
    • From a numerical point of view, the aggregation of the quarterly estimates. For the quarters corresponding to any year, it coincides with the estimate of the Annual Spanish National Accounts for that year. Therefore, there is also a quantitative coherence between the annual and quarterly accounts.

    The main aggregates within the Quarterly Spanish National Accounts are the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its components from the perspectives of supply, demand and income as well as employment and some important aggregates regarding the current and capital accounts of the National Economy and Rest of the World.

    QSNA estimates are carried out at current prices in terms of linked volume and average prices of the previous year, in terms of gross and adjusted seasonality and calendar effects.

    Furthermore, auxiliary indicators are collected: contribution to GDP growth, productivity of the work factor, unit labour costs, pay per wage earner and wage-earner rate.

  • 3.2Classification system
    • Clasificaciones utilizadas

      The classifications used are those that appear in the ESA95 manual:

      In the case of the gross added value as well as employment and pay of wage earners, branches of activity are grouped and coded in reference to the National Classification of National Activities 2009 (CNAE-2009). Specifically, the gross added value breakdown published in the QSNA is the following:

      • Agriculture, stockbreeding, forestry and fishing
      • Industry
      • Construction
      • Services
        • Trade, transport and accommodation.
        • Information and communication.
        • Financial and insurance activities.
        • Real estate activities.
        • Professional activities.
        • Public Administration, healthcare and education.
        • Artistic, leisure and other activities.

      Gross fixed capital formation is broken down by type of asset, following the AN_F6 classification in the following groups:

      • Fixed tangible assets:
        • Households.
        • Other buildings and constructions.
        • Transport equipment.
        • Other machinery and capital goods.
        • Cultivated assets.
      • Intangible fixed assets.

      The final consumption expenditure is published according to the goods and services operations included in ESA-95:

      • Household final consumption expenditure
      • NPISH final consumption expenditure
      • Public Administrations final consumption expenditure

      For operations related to foreign trade as well as exports and imports of goods and services, ESA-95 distinguishes between:

      • Exports/Imports of goods
      • Exports/Imports of services

      Within this category, QSNA distinguishes the consumption expenditure of non-residents in the economic territory in the case of exports and the consumption expenditure of residents in the rest of the world in the case of imports.

  • 3.3Sector coverage

    Quarterly Spanish National Accounts cover all the economic activities included in the production boundary (in terms of ESA-95) that are developed by every institutional unit that makes up the national economy.

    Not included are domestic and personal services produced and consumed in the same household (except those produced by paid domestic staff and the rental services of dwellings occupied by their owners), volunteering activities in which no goods are produced and the purely natural processess which take place with no human intervention or direction.

  • 3.4Statistical concepts and definitions
    • Changes in inventories and acquisitions less disposals of valuables
      They are measured by the value of the entries into inventories less the value of withdrawals and the value of any recurrent losses of goods held in inventories.
    • Compensation of employees
      Compensation of employees is defined as 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 reference period. It is broken down into:
      
      - wages and salaries (D.11)
      
      - employers' social contributions (D.12)
    • Employees
      Are defined as persons who, by agreement, work for another resident institutional unit and receive a remuneration registered as compensation of the employees.
    • Exports of goods and services
      Consist of transactions in goods and services (sales, barter, gifts or donations) from residents to non-residents.
    • Final consumption expenditure
      Consists of the expenditure incurred by resident institutional units on goods and services that are used for the direct satisfaction of individual or collective needs. The institutional sectors that incur expenditure on final consumption are Households, Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households and the General Government.
    • Full-time equivalent employment
      Equals the number of full-time equivalent jobs, is defined as total hours worked divided by the average annual number of hours worked in full-time within the economic territory.
    • Gross Domestic Product at market prices (GDPmp) (The expenditure side)
      GDPmp (N 1) is the sum of final consumption (P 30) on the economic territory by households and private non-profit institutions and general government, gross fixed capital formation (P 41), change in stocks (P 42), and the difference between exports (P 50) and imports (P 60).
    • Gross Domestic Product at market prices (GDPmp) (The income side)
      GDPmp (N 1) is the sum of compensation of employees (R 10), gross operating surplus of the economy (N 2), and taxes linked to production and imports (R 20) less subsidies (R 30).
    • Gross Domestic Product at market prices (GDPmp) (The output side)
      GDPmp (N 1) is the difference between output of goods and services (P 10) and intermediate consumption (P 20) plus VAT on products (R 21) and net taxes linked to imports (excluding value added tax (VAT)) (R 29).
    • Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at market prices
      It is the final result of productive activity result of the resident producers.
      It can be defined in three ways:
      
      a) Output approach:
      The GDP is equal to the sum of the gross value added of the various institutional sectors or the various industries plus taxes and less subsidies on products.
      
      b) Expenditure approach:
      GDP is equal to the sum of the final uses of goods and services by resident institutional units (final consumption expenditure and gross capital formation), plus exports minus imports of goods and services.
      
      c) Income approach:
      GDP is equal to the sum of the compensation of employees, taxes on production and imports less subsidies, gross operating surplus and mixed income of the total economy.
    • Gross Fixed Capital Formation
      Consists of acquisitions less disposals of fixed assets, tangible fixed asset or intellectual property products, 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 produced assets used in production for more than one year.
    • Imports of goods and services
      Consist of transactions in goods and services (purchases, barter and gifts) from non-residents to residents.
    • Job
      Is defined as an explicit or implicit contract between a person (who can live in other economic territory) and a resident institutional unit to perform work in return for compensation for a defined period or until further notice. Job concept differs from employment since a person (employment) can carry out more than a job; one after another, during a given period (usually a week), or in parallel, as it happens when someone has a job during the day and another one at night. For measuring labour input to domestic economic activity, only the residence of the producer institutional unit is relevant, because resident producers alone contribute to gross domestic product.
    • Operating surplus and mixed income
      It is the balance item of the generation of income account. It corresponds to the income received by the rest of production units, not integrated in mixed income due to participation in the productive process. In the case of household unincorporated companies, the balancing item of the operating account implicitly has an element that corresponds to the payment of the work carried out by the owner or his/her family members and that cannot be distinguished from the benefits as entrepreneur. In this case it is Mixed Income.
    • Persons employed
      Covers all persons (employees or self-employed persons) engaged in productive activity that falls within the production boundary of the national accounts.
    • Self-employed persons
      Are defined as persons who are the sole owners, or joint owners, of the unincorporated enterprises in which they work, excluding those unincorporated enterprises that are classified as quasi-corporations.
    • Total hours worked
      Represents the aggregate number of hours actually worked as an employee or self-employee person during the accounting period, when their output is within the production boundary.
  • 3.5Statistical unit

    The units and group of units used in Spanish National Accounts are defined based on the type of economic analysis to be carried out.

    One of the basic units used by ESA 1995 is the institutional unit (IU)defined as an elementary economic decision-making centre, characterised by uniformity of behaviour and decision-making autonomy in the exercise of its main function. These units are grouped by institutional sectors (IS). They can for example be a household, an unincorporated company or a unit of the Public Administrations.

    In practice, institutional units that produce goods and services usually carry out different activities at the same time. Therefore, for an effective analysis of the production process, these institutional units have to be divided from the production point of view into smaller and more homogenous units. This way, local kind-of-activity units (LKAU), that group into branches of activity (BA) and units of homogeneous producton (UHP) that group into homogenous branches (HB).

    For further information see ESA-95.

  • 3.6Statistical population

    Spanish National Accounts combine the data coming from several different statistical sources. The concept of statistical population cannot be strictly applied in the context of Spanish National Accounts.

  • 3.7Reference area

    Quarterly Spanish National Accounts cover all the national territory.

  • 3.8Time coverage

    The series length of the Quarterly Spanish National Accounts will depend on the reference base:

    • In base 2008, which is currently in force, there is information available from the first quarter of year 2000.
    • In base 2000, there is information available from the first quarter of 1995 to the second quarter of 2011.
    • In base 1995, there is information available from the first quarter of 1980 to the fourth quarter of 2004.
    • In base 1986, there is information available from the first quarter of 1970 to the fourth quarter of 1998.
  • 3.9Base period

    The evolution of quarterly aggregates measured at current prices may be divided into two components. One that reflects the evolution of the prices and the other movement in volume. The main purpose of the estimates at constant prices it to provide measurements of the economic activity in which the effect of price variation is eliminated.

    When developing estimates at current prices, the main choice is the base year in which these estimates will be expressed. Fixed or mobile base.

    Until the penultimate change of base (reference year 2000), Spanish National Accounts have used a fixed base year for the calculation of its estimates at constant prices. This base year was updated every certain time, and all the temporary series available at current price and price of the new base year were displayed.

    However, the modifications of the exchange structure during the base year that occur with the passing of time as a consequence of the changes in relative prices, technology, exchanged products, preferences etc. imply the loss of statistical significance and relevance of the fixed-base valuations.

    A solution to the problem of losing relevance consists in checking the base with the same frequency with which the estimate is carried out. This way, in annual terms, the estimates are obtained at prices of the previous year. These estimates constitute the so called linkages. Thus, there would not only be one base year but on the contrary, it would change as the estimates change throughout time. This behaviour provides relevant estimates at constant prices, however, direct comparison can only be carried out between two consecutive years. The formation of a homogeneous series that represents the complete year sequence requires the linking of all linkages (that are developed by using the Laspeyres formula in the case of volume variations). The reference year is the year that defines the linked index scale (being 100), whereas the temporary base is mobile. There are as many bases as pairs of consecutive years, hence the linked valuation lacks of a fixed base (mobile base).

    The application of this linked index methodology generates addititvity loss in linked volume measures as a consequence of the mathematical properties of the valuation system. However, this problem does not exist for the estimates corresponding to the reference years and the year immediately after, nor does it exist for the estimates at prices of the previous year. Furthermore, the possible inconveniences they may cause can be reduced by presenting in the aggregate the contribution that the components make to the exchange in the form of a percentage.

    The linked volume measures in Annual Spanish National Accounting are stipulated according to the Decision of the European Commission No. 98/715 which establishes its obligatory nature in data transmission of the National Statistics Institute to the EU Statistics Office, Eurostat. Despite there is no equivalent legal framework for QSNA, for consistency reasons this new methodology has been adopted since its implementation in the Annual National Accounts (since May 2006, when publications started to have reference year 2000).

    The real application of linked index to the quarterly aggregates (that is, substitution of the temporary annual reference period for a quarterly one) can cause serious problems: inconsistency between annual and quarterly indices and the distortion of the comparison between quarters. To solve this problem, annual information is incorporated in the development of quarterly linkages so as to eliminate elements that may lead to seasonality, also the concept of overlap is introduced. There are three techniques for linking quarterly indices, according to the period chosen as a reference to calculate each specific linkage of the series:

    -Annual overlap, which uses the previous year (average of the four quarters) as the reference period for the calculation of the four linkages of the current period.

    -One-quarter overlap, which uses the fourth quarter of the previous year as the reference period for the calculation of the four linkages of the current period.

    -Over the year overlap: which uses the same quarter of the previous year as the reference period for the calculation of a linkage of the current period.

    Quarterly Spanish National Accounts uses the annual overlap technique for building quarterly linked indices. The main advantage of this linking technique, which is used by Eurostat as well as by several member states, is that it provides linked quarterly indices that are coherent with the annual indices, that is, the average of the quarterly indices coincides with the annual index.

    After the recent base change (November 2011), the reference year for volume linked indices is year 2008.

• 4Unit of measure
  • 4.1Unit of measure
• 5Reference period
  • 5.1Reference period

    The accounting period is the natural or calendar quarter.

    Data referred to the period: Trimestral A: 2013 TRI: IV

• 6Institutional mandate
  • 6.1Legal acts and other agreements
    The compilation and dissemination of the data are governed by the Statistical Law No. 12/1989 "Public Statistical Function" of May 9, 1989, and Law No. 4/1990 of June 29 on “National Budget of State for the year 1990" amended by Law No. 13/1996 "Fiscal, administrative and social measures" of December 30, 1996, makes compulsory all statistics included in the National Statistics Plan. The National Statistical Plan 2009-2012 was approved by the Royal Decree 1663/2008. It contains the statistics that must be developed in the four year period by the State General Administration's services or any other entity dependent on it. All statistics included in the National Statistics Plan are statistics for state purposes and are obligatory. The National Statistics Plan 2013-2016, approved by Royal Decree 1658/2012, of 7 December, is the Plan currently implemented. This statistical operation has governmental purposes, and it is included in the National Statistics Plan 2013-2016. (Statistics of the State Administration).
    

    Regulation (EU) no. 2223/96 of the Council, 25 June 1996, regarding the European System of National and Regional Accounts, contains the reference framework of common accounting concepts, definitions, classifications and norms intended for the development of National Accounts. This regulation is available at: https://www.ine.es/normativa/leyes/UE/minine.htm#30019

    The regulation in force that regulates transmission of National Account data to Eurostat is Regulation (EU) no. 1392/2007 of the European Parliament and the Council, 13 November 2007. Therefore, Regulation (EU) no. 2223/96 of the Council regarding this aspect is modified.

  • 6.2Data sharing
    The exchanges of information needed to elaborate statistics between the INE and the rest of the State statistical offices (Ministerial Departments, independent bodies and administrative bodies depending on the State General Administration), or between these offices and the Autonomic statistical offices, are regulated in the LFEP (Law of the Public Statistic Function). This law also regulates the mechanisms of statistical coordination, and concludes cooperation agreements between the different offices when necessary.
    

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• 7Confidentiality
  • 7.1Confidentiality - policy
    The Statistical Law No. 12/1989 specifies that the INE cannot publish, or make otherwise available, individual data or statistics that would enable the identification of data for any individual person or entity. Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society
    
  • 7.2Confidentiality - data treatment
    INE provides information on the protection of confidentiality at all stages of the statistical process: INE questionnaires for the operations in the national statistical plan include a legal clause protecting data under statistical confidentiality. Notices prior to data collection announcing a statistical operation notify respondents that data are subject to statistical confidentiality at all stages. For data processing, INE employees have available the INE data protection handbook, which specifies the steps that should be taken at each stage of processing to ensure reporting units' individual data are protected. The microdata files provided to users are anonymised.
    

    Quarterly Spanish National Accounts is a statistical operation included in the National Statistical Plan, which is therefore subject to the Law on the Public Statistical Function, 9 May 1989. As a result, its data is protected by Statistical Secrecy in all the stages of its development.

• 8Release policy
  • 8.1Release calendar
    The advance release calendar that shows the precise release dates for the coming year is disseminated in the last quarter of each year.
    
  • 8.2Release calendar access
    The calendar is disseminated on the INEs Internet website (Publications Calendar)
    
  • 8.3User access
    The data are released simultaneously according to the advance release calendar to all interested parties by issuing the press release. At the same time, the data are posted on the INE's Internet website (www.ine.es/en) almost immediately after the press release is issued. Also some predefined tailor-made requests are sent to registered users. Some users could receive partial information under embargo as it is publicly described in the European Statistics Code of Practice
    
• 9Frequency of dissemination
  • 9.1Frequency of dissemination

    The data is disseminated quarterly.

• 10Accessibility and clarity
  • 10.1News release
    The results of the statistical operations are normally disseminated by using press releases that can be accessed via both the corresponding menu and the Press Releases Section in the web
    
  • 10.2Publications

    Users of the quarterly accounts may access the data of base 2008 through the INE website (https://www.ine.es/dyngs/INEbase/en/operacion.htm?c=Estadistica_C&cid=1254736164439&menu=enlaces&idp=1254735576581). Specifically, the following sections appear:

    · Press release: it contains a summary of the economic situation of the last quarter, paying special attention to the different components of GDP from the demand, supply and income perspectives. It also analyses the employment situation for the different branches of activity and other indicators.

    -Main results: which include GDP estimates as well as its components from the three perspectives in linked volume indices and current terms, payment and employment (gross and adjusted) and the National Disposable Income for the quarters corresponding to the last three years.

    · Non-financial quarterly accounts of the total economy and Rest of the World: it contains the information for the economy as a whole (current and accumulation accounts) and the rest of the world (operations and balancing items, current and accumulation accounts) in the form of a sequence of accounts from the first quarter of 1995 to the last quarter published.

    · QSNA Base 2008. Series from quarter 1/2000 to the last published quarter: which includes the complete set of series published by QSNA.

    The INE website also offers information related to other QSNA bases (base 2000, 1995 and 1986).

    It is possible to access the series published by QSNA through the EUROSTAT database.

  • 10.3On-line database
    INEbase is the system the INE uses to store statistical information on the Internet. It contains all the information the INE produces in electronic formats. The primary organisation of the information follows the theme-based classification of the Inventory of Statistical Operations of the State General Administration . The basic unit of INEbase is the statistical operation, defined as the set of activities that lead to obtaining statistical results on a determined sector or topic using data collected individually
    

    Information about QSNA base 2008 can be obtained in the following link.

    https://www.ine.es/dyngs/INEbase/en/operacion.htm?c=Estadistica_C&cid=1254736164439&menu=enlaces&idp=1254735576581

     

     

  • 10.4Micro-data access
    A lot of statistical operations disseminate public domain anonymized files, available free of charge for downloading in the INE website Microdata Section
    

    Because of the nature of the Spanish National Accounts, no microdata is available.

  • 10.5Other
  • 10.6Documentation on methodology

    The "Handbook on Quarterly National Accounts" is available in the following link:

    http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/product_details/publication?p_product_code=CA-22-99-781

  • 10.7Quality documentation

    Quality Reports are developed every three years since the year 2000, following Eurostat Regulation 1998/0577R. The last one available is the one corresponding to year 2008.

• 11Quality management
  • 11.1Quality assurance
    Quality assurance framework for the INE statistics is based on the ESSCoP, the European Statistics Code of Practice made by EUROSTAT. The ESSCoP is made up of 15 principles, gathered in three areas: Institutional Environment, Processes and Products. Each principle is associated with some indicators which make possible to measure it. In order to evaluate quality, EUROSTAT provides different tools: the indicators mentioned above, Self-assessment based on the DESAP model, peer review, user satisfaction surveys and other proceedings for evaluation.
    
  • 11.2Quality assessment

    In order to guarantee the strict application of ESA-95 concepts, Spanish National Accounts are supervised periodically by Eurostat.

• 12Relevance
  • 12.1User needs

    Quarterly accounts arise from the need to obtain fast synthetic information about the behaviour of an economy which allows convenient decision-making in terms of Political Economy as well as speeding up the supervision of the adopted measures.

    Furthermore, since the average period of the economic cycle generally does not coincide with the multiple of the years, economic cycle fluctuations are not captured appropriately with the annual estimates. For this reason, The Quarterly Spanish National Accounts are used by econometricians as a useful tool to detect the stage of the economic cycle.

    Finally, as it is a synthesis statistic, QSNA allows identifying gaps and improvements in the Spanish short-term statistical system.

  • 12.2User satisfaction

    The INE has carried out general user satisfaction surveys in 2007, 2010 and 2013, and it plans to continue doing so every three years. The purpose of these surveys is to find out what users think about the quality of the information of the INE statistics and the extent to which their needs of information are covered. In addition, additional surveys are carried out in order to acknowledge better other fields such as dissemination of the information, quality of some publications...

    On the INE website, in its section Methods and Projects / Quality and Code of Practice / INE quality management / User surveys are available surveys conducted to date.(Click  next link)

     

    
    

    INE carries out the User Satisfaction Survey so as to evaluate the quality of Spanish National Account products received by the most representative users.

  • 12.3Completeness
• 13Accuracy and reliability
  • 13.1Overall accuracy
  • 13.2Sampling error

    Spanish National Accounts is a synthesis statistical operation and not a survey. Therefore, sampling errors and non-sampling errors are not applicable.

    However, it is indirectly affected by these errors, due to the fact that it has several surveys among its sources of information.

  • 13.3Non-sampling error

    Quarterly Spanish National Accounts is a synthesis statistical operation and not a survey. Therefore, sampling errors and non-sampling errors are not applicable.

    However, it is indirectly affected by these errors, due to the fact that it has several surveys among its sources of information.

• 14Timeliness and punctuality
  • 14.1Timeliness

    The advance estimate of GDP (annual and quarterly growth rate of adjusted quarterly seasonal and calendar GDP) is published 45 days after the end of the reference quarter at the latest, in compliance with the calendar agreed by Eurostat and the member states of the EU.

    The complete estimate of QSNA is published 60 days after the termination of the reference period at the most, in compliance with the Regulation that regulates the transmission of data related to the National Accounts of the Statistical Institutes of the Member States of the EU to Eurostat (REGULATION (EU) No. 1392/2007).

  • 14.2Punctuality

    The results of the Quarterly Spanish National Accounts are published from time to time, in agreement with the the INE short-term statistical publication calendar.

    https://www.ine.es/daco/daco41/calen.htm

• 15Coherence and Comparability
  • 15.1Comparability - geographical

    The ESA-95 methodology used by all member countries of the EU and the development of seasonal and calendar adjusted data allows comparing the estimates of quarterly accounts among each other.

  • 15.2Comparability - over time

    The basic methodology for the development of quarterly accounts had not changed from 1992 (when it was used for the first time) to 1999. In April 1999, conceptual changes regarding the implementation of the European System of Integrated Accounts were introduced, ESA95, according to regulation number 96/2223 of the European Union Council. The introduction of the aforementioned methodological changes, was accompanied by a series of statistical changes that arose as a consequence of the revision of sources and procedures. All of this led to base change 1995.

    In May 2005, there was another base change (year 2000) in which besides the statistical changes associated with every base change, there were two important conceptual changes:

    • Introduction of a new volume estimate development method, through which the estimates at fixed base constant prices used until now, are replaced by estimates at prices of the preceding year and by linked volume indices.
    • Allocation of the Financial Intermediation Services Indirectly Measured to user sectors and branches of activity

    
    Finally, in November 2011 the series of aggregates of the Spanish National Accounts started to be published with reference year 2008. This base change was mainly motivated by the incorporation of the new CNAE 2009 but involved a series of statistical changes typical of any base change operation.

    In the current base (2008) homogeneous series are available from the first quarter of 2000 to the last published quarter.

  • 15.3Coherence - cross domain

    Quarterly Spanish National Accounts are coherent with the quarterly Accounts of the Public Administrations compiled by the General State Comptroller (IGAE), with the Foreign Trade statistics of the Customs Department and with the Payment Balance.

  • 15.4Coherence - internal

    As previously mentioned, the quarterly estimates of all aggregates are temporarily consistent with the annual figures, within the price and volume measurement framework of ESA 1995. There is also consistency with Non-financial Accounts of Institutional Sectors.

    Moreover, the macroeconomic representation offered by Quarterly Spanish National Accounts must ensure balance between resources and employment in the economy, as well as coherence between the main markets and macroeconomic-type elements (Goods and services market, Work Market, Foreign Sector, prices and wages, etc.).

• 16Cost and burden
  • 16.1Cost and burden

    In the 2014 Annual Program, the estimate of the necessary budget credit to finance this statistical operation is 138.69 million euros.
    The workload for informants is non-existent since QSNA is compiled using the information provided by other statistics.

• 17Data revision
  • 17.1Data revision - policy

    Quarterly Spanish National Accounts data is revised according to data revision schema of the Annual Spanish National Accounts. When Annual Spanish National Accounts revise their data in August each year, Quarterly Spanish National Accounts publish quarterly series coherent with the new annual data series.

    Moreover, the advance estimate of GDP published each quarter is revised a few days after, when all the corresponding short-term information is available and the complete accounts related to that quarter are compiled.

  • 17.2Data revision - practice

    There are several factors that determine the revisions of QSNA estimates:

    • Changes in the data of Annual Spanish National Accounts.
    • Substitution of quarterly indicator predictions for their observed values and revisions of quarterly indicators.
    • Changes induced by the application of temporary breakdown procedures and accounting balance.
    • Changes due to seasonal adjustment

    The first time quarterly data is published it is provisional. The final quarterly data is published every four years after the termination of the reference quarter (when the annual estimates are final).

    In general terms, the practical way to proceed is the following:

    • In the month of August, the revised annual estimates are incorporated in the publication related to the second quarter of each year. As a consequence, there is a revision of the quarterly estimates corresponding to all quarters related to revised years as well as those corresponding to the quarters of the current year.
    • In the rest of publications corresponding to the first, third and fourth quarters (February, May and November respectively) only the quarters of the open year are subject to be revised.
• 18Statistical processing
  • 18.1Source data

    QSNA integrate and combines a great number of short-term economic information sources. There are two types of quantitative short-term statistical information:

    • Direct information: gives information about the level of an accounting aggregate.
    • Indirect information: gives information about the change between two periods of an aggregate or part of it.

    The availability of different types of information conditions the amount of information that the quarterly accounts can provide (comprehensiveness and breakdowns) as well as the way in which these initial sources will be used. This makes it necessary to complement this statistical base data with the statistical and econometric procedures in the case of indirect information.

    In Spain there is direct statistical quarterly information for the following aggregates:

    • Rest of the World Accounts, through the Customs and Balance of Payments Statistics.
    • Public Administration aggregates (final consumption expenditure, added value, payment of wage earners, taxes, etc.).
    • Information related to the financial sector.

    For the rest of operations, the available short-term information is indirect so the corresponding quarterly aggregates are estimated based on the temporary breakdown of the annual aggregates based on the existing short-term information and using mathematical and statistical methods (indirect methods).

    Among the indirect indicators used, the following shall be pointed out:

    • Production statistics. Some examples are: Industrial Production Indices, Industry Turnover Indices, Services Sector Activity Indicators, Corporation Sales, Retail Trade Indices, Passenger Transport, Hotel Tourism Short-term Trends, Tourist Accomodation Occupancy Survey, Construction Activity Indicators, Agricultural and Livestock Productions,...
    • Employment and costs statistics, such as the Economically Active Person Survey, Labour Costs Survey or Social Security Affiliation Statistics.
    • Price statistics, such as the Services Sector Price Index, Consumer Price Index, Industrial Price Index, Housing Price Index, Unit Value Index, Agricultural Price Index...
    • Administrative registers and other quantitative sources.
    • Other non-quantitative indicators such as Confidence Indicators or the Short-Term Industrial Survey.

    Las medidas del tamaño de las revisiones MAR y RMAR en términos de tasas de variación interanual del PIB en volumen (datos ajustados de estacionalidad y calendario) son: MAR= 0,217 y RMAR=7,025%

    Y en términos de tasas de variación intertrimestral son: MAR=0,091 y RMAR=11,954%

  • 18.2Frequency of data collection

    Monthly or quarterly, according to the nature of the short-term indicator.

  • 18.3Data collection

    Data is collected in different ways depending on the type of source, availability date of the data, etc.

    Generally, the data is sent to the quarterly accounts units by the different units that compile the data. However, if the breakdown level is appropriate and the publishing date corresponds with the QSNA work scheme, in some occasions it is possible to obtain the information directly from the corresponding database.

  • 18.4Data validation

    Once the base indicators are selected, they are subjected to a series of treatments: identification of outliers, error filtering, prediction of missing data, adjustment to National Accounts terms...

  • 18.5Data compilation

    The compilation process of QSNA may be structured in different stages:

    1. Updating of indicators

    the quality of the quarterly estimates obtained by indirect method depends greatly on the indicators. When selecting the basic indicators, the main criteria taken into account is: conceptual coherence with the annual aggregate to be indicated, correlation with that aggregate, quarterly frequency or higher, minimum time-lag, enough length, future availability, minimum prediction and statistical quality errors.

    2. Univariate treatment of basic series

    Once base indicators are updated, they are subjected to a series of treatments. As indicated in section 20.4, the main treatments consist in: identification of outliers, error filtering, prediction of missing data and adjustment to National Accounts terms.

    3. Building synthetic indicators

    Based on the series of basic indicators, the information is synthesized, this way obtaining a synthetic indicator (of value or volume and prices) for each aggregate and at the necessary breakdown level. The objective is to obtain more unhurried models in terms of parameter estimate. In order to design synthetic indicators, different techniques are used such as Factorial Analysis, Weighted Average, Main Components or Canonical Correlation.

    4. Application of temporary breakdown procedures

    Once there is a synthetic indicator for each aggregate(for variation in current terms and for volume evolution) temporary breakdown procedures are applied to the series of annual aggregates (mainly the general Chow and Lin method) so as to obtain the series of quarterly aggregates. This way, a first version is obtained of the quarterly estimates in current terms, at average prices of the pervious year and linked volume indices that are temporarily inconsistent with the annual estimates.

    5. Balance and conciliation process of gross estimates

    In order to solve supply-demand inconsistency problems and keep the temporary consistency and therefore obtain the almost-definite gross quarterly aggregates, the balance and conciliation process shall be carried out. This process has two stages:

    • In the first stage automatic multivariate procedures are applied (mainly the multivariate Denton method), since both types of restrictions as a whole set out the problem in an explicit multivariate framework.
    • In the second stage, the data obtained in the previous stage are subjected to a control and validation process, which basically consists in the following treatments:
      • Comparison of the resulting quarterly aggregates with the available short-term base information.
      • Coherence and interpretation analysis of certain indices (deflators, productivity, unitary costs, etc.).
      • Study of the current data revision regarding the data published the previous quarter.
      • Analysis of the resulting quarter-on-quarter and annual variation rates.

    The series of quarterly aggregates in gross terms of supply, demand and income, and employment that are obtained at the end of this stage will be definitive after the final viability study. This study also includes the adjusted seasonal and calendar quarterly series.

    6. Application of signal extraction procedures

    Each aggregate series obtained in the previous section is applied signal extraction procedures so as to obtain the series of adjusted seasonal and calendar quarterly aggregates.

    The temporary series of the quarterly accounts may present seasonal fluctuations, that is, movements that appear recurrently with a similar intensity in the same season each year and are expected to continue appearing in the future. The nature of these effects is not associated with any relevant feature of the intrinsic behaviour of the aggregate and can avoid a clear signal of its evolution.

    This way, in order to interpret the quarterly account data as best as possible, they must be adjusted from seasonal fluctuations. This will allow obtaining a series called seasonally adjusted series or deseasonalised series.

    Furthermore, the temporary series of quarterly accounts are usually affected by the so called "calendar effects". They cover the periodic effects over a series which is directly or indirectly associated with specific calendar realities that are not part of the nature of the series itself and that may also distort the interpretation of the evolution of a macroeconomic operation.

    Seasonal and calendar adjusted series will not show explainable repetitive movements but will reveal the "news" they contain, that is, trend and cycle changes as well as irregularities.

    The Quarterly National Accounts publish the series of quarterly macroeconomic aggregates in their gross and adjusted form of seasonal and calendar effects. In both cases, there is temporary coherence with the annual aggregates as well as transversal coherence (supply/demand/income/employment).

    The procedure of seasonal adjustment applied in QSNA, uses the signal extraction methodology based on ARIMA models (MBSE) implemented in programs TRAMO and SEATS (Gomez and Maravall, 1997) which is one of the procedures recommended by Eurostat. The applied procedures follow the recommendations included in the Handbook on Quarterly National Accounts (Eurostat, 1999) and in the final report of the work group about seasonal adjustment in Quarterly National Accounts (Eurostat and European Central Bank, 2008).

    When using TRAMO-SEATS, the estimate of the underlying components in the temporary series is carried out in two stages. In the first stage, calendar effects are evaluated as well as the rest of deterministic effects by means of a regression analysis with ARIMA errors. In the second stage, the rest of components are estimated by applying Wiener-Kolmogorov filters to the corrected series of the calendar effects and deterministic effects (linear series).

    Adjustment is carried out on quarterly series in gross terms and not on the indicators. The model is chosen once a year.

    7. Balance and conciliation process of adjusted data.

    The objective of this stage is to obtain temporary consistency and accounting balance of the adjusted quarterly series. To do so, proceed similarly to section 5. Once quantitative and transverse coherence of the adjusted data is obtained, it is subjected to a process of residual seasonal control.

    8. Overall valuation of gross/adjusted data.

    Finally there is an overall valuation of all the information (adjusted and non-adjusted quarterly aggregate series of supply, demand, income and employment in current and volume terms), and numerous coherence and viability controls are carried out.

  • 18.6Adjustment

    The way to obtain an adjusted series of GDP is direct, that is, the signal of the aggregate is not obtained as the sum of the corresponding signals of its components but the signal extraction procedures are applied directly to the aggregate in gross terms. Afterwards, once each of the components is deseasonalised and adjusted at calendar effects, balance and conciliation procedures are applied so as to obtain consistent transversal and temporarily adjusted series.

    Finally, following Eurostat recommendations, no adjustments are carried out due to the lack of additivity caused by the adoption of the linked index methodology for the measurement of variations in volume of the supply and demand aggregates.

• 19Comment
  • 19.1Comment

    For further information see the "Handbook on quarterly national accounts" in the following link:

    http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/product_details/publication?p_product_code=CA-22-99-781