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Comparability

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National Accounts, Economic Statistics
Jonas Johansen Næsby
+45 3917 3477

jjn@dst.dk

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Fixed Capital Stock

Comparisons with other statistics at a detailed industry level will often show differences, partly because of differences in definitions of variables, and partly because of the calendar year delimitation of the national accounts and its requirement of total coverage of the economic activity.

Internationally there is a high degree of comparability with the national accounts of other countries because the Danish national accounts are compiled in accordance with the definitions in the European System of National Accounts ESA2010.

Comparability - geographical

Internationally there is a high degree of comparability with the national accounts of other countries because the Danish national accounts are compiled in accordance with the definitions in the European System of National Accounts ESA2010.

Other conditions: The statement in the Statbank of inventory variables in 2010-prices, chained values is based on valuation in the mid-year prices, whereas delivery and publication at Eurostat is done with valuation in the year's end prices. Therefore, the calculated growth rates will not necessarily be identical.

Comparability over time

One of the fundamental goals when compiling National Accounts statistics is to achieve a high degree of comparability over time. The statistical sources are therefore adapted in order to be consistent with the concepts of the National Accounts. Fundamental changes of nomenclatures as for example classification of industries, changes in definitions as a result of new guidelines as well as new and better sources, will inevitably lead to changes in the National Accounts and the compilation of fixed capital. In such cases, a comprehensive revision is involved, and earlier periods are re-compiled following the new guidelines.

Coherence - cross domain

Statistics Denmark's industrial classification DB07, which is a Danish version of the EU NACE, rev. 2. and the UN's ISIC, rev. 4, contains a number of standard classifications: the 127, 36, 19, and 10 classifications.

The final national accounts classification of 117 industries corresponds - with few deviations - to the 127 standard classification and the 117 industries of the national accounts can be aggregated to the other standard classifications. For this reason, national accounts figures can easily be compared to and used in connection with other statistics that are based on the DB07-standard classifications.

However, fixed capital is only published at the 69 classification standard.

The compilation of fixed capital is consistent with the rest of the national accounts. The products are identical to those used for gross fixed capital formation in the national accounts, the industry breakdown is identical to the industry breakdown of gross fixed capital formation (69 level) and the breakdown by institutional sectors is identical to the institutional sector accounts. As the compilation follows international guidelines a high degree of comparability with other countries is achieved. This applies in particular to the European Union, where the Commission represented by Eurostat goes to great lengths to achieve comparability between the national accounts in member states.

Coherence - internal

There is per se fully internal consistency in the National Accounts.