GDP Consumption QoQ

GDP Consumption QoQ is the quarter-on-quarter percent change in Household final consumption expenditure (HFCE). The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Australia's statistical agency, publishes it in seasonally adjusted chain volume measures. It is compiled under the 2008 System of National Accounts and covers resident spending at home and abroad, plus non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHs). It includes income in kind and imputed rent, but excludes home purchases, business spending, repairs and licences.

Each estimate covers 3 consecutive calendar months. It is generally released on the first Wednesday of the third month after the reference quarter at 11:30am Sydney time. It appears with GDP, state demand, income accounts and HFCE detail, while the September issue re-benchmarks to new supply-and-use tables. The June issue gives first financial-year estimates with gaps for the latest two years.

Quarters are revised as better data arrive and benchmarked so 4 quarters sum to the annual total. Revisions update recent quarters or redistribute the year after annuals change. Trend for the latest three quarters uses an asymmetric average, and quarters project at most eight ahead.

Spending follows 17 categories set by a modified Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP), with moving weights, shown here in 6 groups:

• Food, alcoholic beverages, tobacco: everyday food, alcohol and tobacco, excluding narcotics.
• Rent and home energy: actual rents plus imputed rent and household energy.
• Clothing and vehicles: apparel, home goods, vehicle purchase and running costs.
• Health, education, transport and leisure: health, education, passenger transport, telecom, leisure and culture.
• Dining and finance: dining out, accommodation, FISIM, insurance and pension charges.
• Other goods and services: miscellaneous items and remaining non-profit consumption, excluding prostitution.

In the June quarter 2020 lockdown, released September 2, 2020, HFCE fell a record 12.1% and detracted 6.7 percentage points from GDP, which fell 7.0%. Services fell 17.6% while goods fell 2.8%. Transport services fell 85.9%, hotels, cafes and restaurants fell 56.1%, health fell 20.2%, and recreation and culture fell 15.3%. Some goods rose against the fall, with alcoholic beverages up 13.0%, furnishings and household equipment up 9.5%, and electricity, gas and other fuel up 4.8%.

The saving ratio jumped to 19.8% from 6.0%, and spending posted its first annual fall on record. The pattern repeated in the September quarter 2021 lockdowns, released December 1, 2021, when HFCE fell 4.8% as services fell 5.8%. Hotels, cafes and restaurants fell 21.2%, recreation and culture fell 11.8%, and transport services fell 40.8%.

1. Elemental volumes: Build volume for each fine item by price deflation, or dividing its value by a price index, which is most common. Use quantity revaluation, or quantities times base-year prices, only for narrow uniform products with no market price.
2. Laspeyres aggregation: Weight items by last financial-year spending shares by valuing this quarter's quantities at last year's average prices. For example, apples and haircuts valued at last-year prices give 1.20, or 20% above average.
3. Chain-linking: Link yearly segments with the 1-quarter overlap method, or valuing 1 quarter at both years' prices, into a continuous series.
4. Benchmarking: Force the 4 quarters to sum to the balanced annual total.
5. Seasonal adjustment: Estimate seasonal factors at fine level, aggregate, chain-link, then benchmark so adjusted quarters sum to annual originals, checking for leftover seasonality.
6. QoQ change: Compute percent change on the prior quarter of adjusted chain volume, and split growth into percentage-point contributions using price deflators. If the index rises from 1.15 to 1.20, QoQ is 4.3%.