GDP Chain Price Index QoQ

The GDP chain price index measures price change across Australia's gross domestic product (GDP), the total market value of goods and services produced in Australia.

Published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), it appears in Table 4 of the quarterly national accounts alongside Table 5 for the deflator.

It combines partial indicators, survey results plus administrative data, with no single sample.

With fixed annual weights it isolates pure price moves, so it is not a cost of living gauge and not a volume growth gauge.

Reference quarters end in March, June, September and December, with release about two months later at 11:30am Sydney time.

Releases fall on the first Wednesday of March, June, September and December and combine partial indicators with no central collection window.

The same release adds volume, price and deflator tables and revises past quarters on better data to align quarters with annual totals.

Most figures revise as fuller data arrive, through new quarterly data and redistribution across quarters after annual revisions.

Chain Laspeyres prices stay in original terms without seasonal adjustment, while the seasonally adjusted price is the implicit price deflator (IPD).

A new base year enters with the September quarter and the 100-indexed reference year moves with it, leaving growth rates unchanged.

Five expenditure parts drive the index on 2020-21 base year weights from nominal GDP, with imports subtracted from the total.

No chain price covers inventories, and both price families use the same product prices with different weight updates.

• Household final consumption expenditure, 50.8%: captures prices of goods and services bought by resident households and private non-profits serving households.
• Gross fixed capital formation, 22.5%: captures prices of dwellings, non-dwelling construction, machinery and equipment, and intellectual property products.
• General government final consumption expenditure, 22.4%: captures prices of goods and services consumed by national defence, national non-defence, and state and local government.
• Exports of goods and services, 22.1%: captures export prices for LNG, coal, iron ore and rural goods, entering with a plus sign.
• Imports of goods and services, -17.9%: captures import prices for consumption goods, capital goods and crude oil, subtracted in GDP arithmetic.

In the June quarter 2023, published 6 September 2023, the chain price fell 2.2% and the deflator fell 1.5%.

Real output rose 0.4% while nominal GDP fell 1.2% as export prices fell 8.2% and import prices fell 0.3%.

Terms of trade, export prices divided by import prices, fell 7.9% for the largest fall since the June quarter 2009.

Warmer winter weather left LNG and coal stocks high and weak Chinese demand cut iron ore prices.

Domestic final demand, household plus government consumption plus fixed investment, still rose 1.2% near 30-year highs.

Household prices rose 1.2% on strong rents and investment prices rose 1.3% on currency depreciation.

The headline fell only because trade weights had shifted since 2020-21, so the fixed weight chain price and the current weight deflator diverged.

1. Elemental prices: Divide current values by a price index at product level, or value quantities at base year unit values. Strip out quality change so only pure price remains.
2. Annual Laspeyres links: Combine price moves using each component's share of base year GDP, then chain yearly links into a series.
3. Worked example: Beef 20 and chicken 20 with beef up 10% give (22+20)/40=1.05, up 5.0% to 105.0, while shifted quantities give a 4.3% deflator.

1. Quarterly links: Value each quarter's volumes at the prior year's average prices, keeping annual weights, then join years with a one-quarter overlap.
2. Quarter change and reference: QoQ is 100 times this linked original quarter over last quarter minus 1, with reference at 100.
3. Benchmarking and two families: Benchmark quarterly links to annual supply use benchmarks and publish chain prices only in original terms with deflators only adjusted. Current weights make the deflator reflect price plus composition.