GDP Growth Rate QoQ

GDP Growth Rate QoQ is the quarter to quarter % change in Japanese real GDP, the total value of goods and services produced. Real means adjusted for price change, so it tracks volume rather than prices. The headline uses seasonally adjusted data, meaning data cleaned of normal seasonal patterns for fair comparison. It covers the whole economy on the expenditure side as consumption plus investment plus net exports. It is compiled by the Department of National Accounts of the Economic and Social Research Institute for the Cabinet Office. It sits under the National Accounts of Japan on the 2008 SNA standard.

Each release covers 1 calendar quarter, namely January to March, April to June, July to September or October to December. Both releases appear at 8:50 AM JST, the First Preliminary about 45 days after quarter end and the Second about 70 days after it. The First Preliminary uses early supply data and projections, while the Second adds corporate financial statements data. Each release adds growth tables with contributions and income lines, and dates can shift if source data are delayed.

Growth moves with shifts in household spending, business investment, housing, stocks, government demand and foreign trade.

• Private Consumption: household spending on goods and services, the largest demand part.
• Private Non-Residential Investment: business spending on plant, equipment, structures and research.
• Private Residential Investment: housing construction measured from building starts on a progress basis.
• Change in Private Inventories: stock shifts in finished goods, materials, work in progress and trade.
• Government Consumption and Public Investment: public services spending covering pay plus goods plus capital use plus transfers, plus public construction from construction statistics.
• Exports and Net Exports: foreign sales of goods and services from Balance of Payments data, less imports, so rising imports lower growth by arithmetic.

In April to June 2020 real GDP fell 7.8% in the First Preliminary and 7.9% in the Second. The Second Preliminary appeared on September 8 2020, marking a third straight quarterly fall. At an annual rate, meaning the quarterly pace stretched over a year, the falls equaled 27.8% and 28.1% in the sharpest drop on record. Private Non-Residential Investment, or business capital spending, was revised from minus 1.5% to minus 4.7% in real terms. In nominal terms it moved from minus 3.0% to minus 6.2%. Private Consumption improved from minus 8.2% to minus 7.9% while exports fell 18.5% in both releases. Domestic Demand contributed minus 4.8 points and then minus 4.9 points, while Net Exports contributed minus 3.0 points in both releases.

1. Auxiliary shipments: build a quarterly turnover, or sales, series for each of 91 goods from supply and demand source data, with no single sample size.
2. Benchmarking: split annual values into quarters by each quarter share of the yearly auxiliary total.
3. Extrapolation: extend the latest annual quarter by the auxiliary change rate, using ARIMA projection where third month data are missing.
4. Domestic supply: adjust shipments for trade margins, add imports, subtract exports and deduct stock changes.
5. Integration: average supply and demand estimates where both exist with a weight that cuts squared error.
6. Nominal and real values: estimate nominal values by component, then chain link to Chained 2020 Yen with goods price indexes.
7. Seasonal adjustment: clean each series with X-12-ARIMA from the first quarter of 1994, with a maximum lead of 8 and a maximum back of 0.
8. Headline growth: compute g = 100 x (SA(t) minus SA(t minus 1)) divided by SA(t minus 1). It uses real seasonally adjusted GDP, with an annual rate row for reference.
9. Illustrative example: output of 560000 billion chained yen rising to 562240 billion gives 0.4% for the quarter.