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Quarterly National Accounts of the Czech Republic

Introductory note

Contents

The publication presents quarterly estimates of GDP and other indicators of national accounts at current prices and 1995 constant prices for the period of the first quarter of 1998 to the fourth quarter of 2002, both original (seasonally non-adjusted) and seasonally adjusted time series. Together with the estimate for the fourth quarter of 2002, the CZSO has updated its indicators referring to all previous quarters of 2001 and of 2002 (see the first methodological note below). Time series of GDP estimates and of related national economy indicators for the period of the first quarter of 1994 to the fourth quarter of 2000 were not revised.

Complete time series of GDP resources and expenditure on GDP for the period of the first quarter of 1994 to the fourth quarter of 2002 are newly presented for the users at the web site /docs/107516/9e3f982c-e755-c5ca-4d5f-e2d8e1bc711f/angl.htm , marked as Time series, “GDP – Time Series”. These time series will be updated every quarter in the future.

In addition to data on sources and expenditures on GDP, the publication brings quarterly breakdown of gross fixed capital formation for the period of the first quarter 1999 to the fourth quarter of 2002.

The publication also shows quarterly accounts for the households sector for the period of the first quarter of 1998 to the fourth quarter of 2002 at current prices, not seasonally adjusted.

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Methodological note on some quarterly estimate adjustment
All methodological and subject-matter discrepancies of 2001 and 2002 years were reflected in an adjustment of the 2001 and 2002 quarterly estimates:
- for all quarters of 2001, deliveries of destructive equipment (primarily the combat planes L-159) were moved from capital formation to expenditures by government, which only influenced the structure and not the GDP level;
- in compliance with Eurostat requirements, indirect taxes were computed on accrual basis, for which the Ministry of Finance CR provided source data. The former estimate of the taxes was cash-based;
- estimates of the level of subsidies were updated using data from the Ministry of Finance CR;
- subsequent to consultations with foreign experts and in accordance with balance of payments, impacts resulting from payments made by domestic insurance companies in connection with the August 2002 floods were excluded from the estimates (or moved to transfers) and so were payments resulting from their reinsurance abroad. This issue will be dealt with later, when total impacts have been quantified.


Methodological note on seasonal adjustment

The publication includes current price and 1995 constant price values of GDP and GDP components, as they were produced and used, which are adjusted for seasonal variation. The seasonal adjustment is carried out with the help of the TRAMO/SEATS method, which consists in decomposing the time series into trend, cyclical, seasonal and irregular components. The seasonal component is excluded and the remaining three are put together to make up a seasonally adjusted time series. The total of seasonally adjusted values corresponds to the total of original values for each year. Differences between seasonally adjusted GDP and the total of expenditures (or resources) are shown as discrepancies. The influence of a different number of working days in individual quarters does not seem to be significant statistically, which is why no adjustment for the influence was made. The seasonally adjusted time series are retrospectively recalculated every quarter with regard to extension and revision of the original non-adjusted time series.


Methodological note on Table “Supplementary Indicators”

CZK-to-USD purchasing power parity (PPP) was calculated by retro-extrapolating data obtained in the OECD international comparison for 1996, following the trend in the proportion of nominal to actual GDP developments for the Czech Republic and the U.S.A. and taking into account the development of mutual exchange rate of the two currencies. The calculations were made retrospectively back to 1990, or they were extrapolated to the years 1997 and 1998. For 1999, new data were used according to the OECD international comparison programme results for 1999. These data were extrapolated to years 2000, 2001 and 2002 similarly as were results for 1996 to years 1997 and 1998. The U.S. GDP data used for conversion into US dollars are based on the 28 February 2003 time series of the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

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GDP estimate for the first quarter of 2003 is to be released on 9 June 2003.