GDP: IBGE prepares revision of the calculation to capture changes – 02/16/2024 – Market

The IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) is working on a review of the National Accounts calculations, which include the survey of GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

According to the agency, the intention is to update statistics to capture changes in the economy linked, for example, to digital transformations and the use of the environment. GDP serves as a measure of countries’ economic growth.

“This review process is common, it is done from time to time because the economy changes”, says Rebeca Palis, coordinator of National Accounts at IBGE, in an interview with Sheet.

“We change some methodology. We can change data sources, classification, giving more importance to some areas of the economy that are gaining more weight”, he adds.

To carry out the review, the body must follow recommendations from international institutions, including the UN (United Nations), OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), World Bank, IMF (International Monetary Fund) and Eurostat.

There is still no confirmed date for the release of the update. The work should be completed after the launch of the new SNA (National Accounts System) manual, scheduled for 2025.

Among other actions, the publication must introduce measurements linked to the environment, the digital economy, the extraction of natural resources, inequality and well-being.

“We don’t have a firm release date, but it will certainly be after the new manual. Countries will make this move. We will have National Accounts that are even more representative, not only of economic performance, but also looking at distributional issues of families”, says Palis.

“GDP is the average. When you’re looking at family consumption, you’re looking at the average. The idea is to create supplementary tables to open up these things, so you can look at family consumption by type of family, something that will provide more information about distribution as well [de renda]”, he adds.

The international recommendation is that such reviews be carried out every ten years to prevent the methodology from becoming obsolete. In Brazil, the latest updates occurred for the reference years 2000 and 2010.

The new change was supposed to use 2020 as a reference period, but the Covid-19 pandemic hampered the choice. Therefore, the option was for 2021 as the basis for the work.

Palis highlights that the new proposal aims to improve the measurement of the impact of the digital economy and environmental degradation. “It’s in the sense of encompassing the economic, the social and the environment,” he says.

In the last change, referring to 2010, there were changes in the accounting of investments in the economy, such as the inclusion of research and development, according to IBGE.

The body already produces research such as the Environmental Economic Accounts, which seek to analyze interactions between the environment and the economy.

In the second half of 2023, the institute also released an unprecedented survey on service app workers in Brazil, one of the faces of the digital economy. At the time, IBGE counted almost 1.5 million professionals in this category.

The institute is led by economist Marcio Pochmann. He assumed the presidency of the body amid challenges in August 2023.