GDP Capital Expenditure QoQ

It tracks gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), or fixed assets acquired less disposals, within gross domestic product (GDP), or total Australian output. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) publishes it quarterly for March, June, September and December quarters since September quarter 1959. It covers private assets by type and public assets by owner from many sources with no single sample, while state splits are less accurate.

It excludes repairs and maintenance and lists inventories as a separate GDP line. It does not separately identify valuables and excludes private second-hand transfers counted as new investment.

Each release covers activity in the quarter ending March, June, September or December and appears about 2 months later at 11:30am Sydney/Canberra time. December and September releases use AEDT, while March and June releases use AEST.

It arrives with national accounts, including GDP parts, state demand, income data, overview text, percent changes, percentage-point contributions and spreadsheets. Most figures are revised as better data arrive, annual benchmarks redistribute quarters and trend for the last 3 quarters is revised each time. The publisher gives percent changes and percentage-point contributions only, with no buy, sell or expansion cutoff.

Private assets drive the detail, while public spending can offset them in the total.

• Dwellings and ownership transfer costs: new and used homes, conversions, extensions plus costs like agent fees, legal fees and stamp duty.
• Non-dwelling construction: new non-residential buildings and engineering works such as roads, bridges, dams and pipelines, plus net used buys from government.
• Machinery and equipment: new plant and vehicles plus net used buys, after removing household used cars and used equipment sold abroad.
• Cultivated biological resources: farm assets that grow, mainly breeding and dairy herds plus orchard trees, vines and bushes.
• Intellectual property products: research and development for expected future benefit, exploration, software, databases and artistic originals like film and books.
• Public investment: dwellings, buildings and equipment bought by public firms and general government, including defence weapons and state and local works.

The June quarter 2024 example, published September 4, 2024, shows the trap: total GFCF was almost flat. Total was -0.1% QoQ and +0.6% through the year with nil GDP contribution while GDP rose 0.2% on a 2021-22 reference year. Private investment fell 0.6%, as non-dwelling construction lost 2.2%, machinery and equipment lost 2.4% and cultivated resources lost 3.0%.

Those falls of 2% to 3% were masked by ownership transfer costs up 3.9%, intellectual property up 1.6% and dwellings up 0.1%. Public investment rose 1.5% on state and local government up 3.0% and defence up 5.3%; a flat total is not equipment alone.

1. Estimate in current prices: use work done, spending and government finance data in cash values. Add farm, fee and solar top-ups and net used flows.
2. Remove price change: divide each state part by its price index in last financial year prices, using moving averages to smooth building costs.
3. Chain-link volumes: value this quarter and last year at last year prices, take the ratio, compound it and scale to the reference year level.
4. Remove seasonality: strip seasonal patterns from prior-year-price figures, then link, and benchmark so four quarters sum to the yearly total. Trend smooths the adjusted series with a centred 7-term Henderson average.
5. Compute the QoQ %: divide this quarter by the prior quarter, subtract 1 and multiply by 100. For example 1,045 / 1,050 gives about -0.5%; the through-year rate compares with the same quarter 4 quarters back. The percentage-point contribution divides the change by prior GDP times 100.
6. Revise: update recent quarters with fuller data and re-split years to yearly supply-use totals, with seasonal review each year.