Question about "Personal consumption of goods and services"

[feargach]

Yo folks, quick question for those of you familiar with CSO data.

If you have a second to spare, can you have a quick look at this:

CSO - Statistics: Expenditure on Gross National Income at Current Market Prices (€m)

I'm particularly interested in "Personal consumption of goods and services" section there, and what is and isn't included in the figure. I'd love to see a link saying "this excludes/includes mortgages/transport/porno mags/whatever". I'm also a little puzzled by the fact that the "Import of goods and services" figure seems to be given as a negative figure which is higher than the "Personal consumption" figure.

Is it the case that the Personal consumption figures simply don't include whether the things being included are domestic or imported?

I could devote a day or two digging through the CSO's highly useful and well-laid out site, but if anyone happens to know the answers to these questions and clues me in, they'll deservedly get pos rep.

[kerrynorth]

Personal Consumption of Goods and Services refers to all the goods and services consumed by Irish residents. It would not include mortgages which are regarded as a cost of investment and not a consumption good.

The import figure is given as a negative as it reduces GNI. The export/import figures are higher than personal consumption because in Ireland we import most of our raw materials which are then used in the production of exports so they are not consumed by Irish residents. There is also the net factor income which in the case of Ireland is a minus. The net factor income is the worldwide income repatriated to Ireland by Irish residents/companies less the repatriation of profits by FDI here, as well net tourism earnings.

The GDP figure is the total amount of goods and services produced in the country, fixed capital formation (net increase in the building stock incl housing and machinery and even net aircraft purchases by Aer Lingus/Ryanair etc), and net government spending on goods and services. Less imports and the net factor income then this gives you the GNI.

There are other methods of calculating this figure as well using Income etc.

[Seos]

Yo folks, quick question for those of you familiar with CSO data.

If you have a second to spare, can you have a quick look at this:

CSO - Statistics: Expenditure on Gross National Income at Current Market Prices (€m)

I'm particularly interested in "Personal consumption of goods and services" section there, and what is and isn't included in the figure. I'd love to see a link saying "this excludes/includes mortgages/transport/porno mags/whatever". I'm also a little puzzled by the fact that the "Import of goods and services" figure seems to be given as a negative figure which is higher than the "Personal consumption" figure.

Is it the case that the Personal consumption figures simply don't include whether the things being included are domestic or imported?

I could devote a day or two digging through the CSO's highly useful and well-laid out site, but if anyone happens to know the answers to these questions and clues me in, they'll deservedly get pos rep.

http://www.cso.ie/releasespublicatio...urrent/qna.pdf

Consumer spending (personal consumption of goods and services)

Personal Consumption Expenditure is estimated using CSO data, such as the Retail Sales
Indices together with some direct inquiries. Administrative data sources are used for some goods
such as fuel and power products and motor vehicles. Constant price estimates are obtained using
components of the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

So personal consumption is another phrase that means the same thing as consumer spending.

That helps a little bit I hope.

"Import of goods and services" has a minus before it because the table is for working out GDP and GNP. In order to get the GDP figure you have to minus imports.

As for why the figure is higher then consumption, I guess for the same reason that we export much more then we produce. That is because MNCs import goods to Ireland only to export them on somewhere else.


EDIT:heh, beaten to the punch and put much clearer too, well done.

Anyway feargach I recommend only looking at the latest releases of the statistic you want when using the CSO website rather than the statistics part of the website, not only are they more up to date but they usually have explanations for what things are at the bottom of the release.