Economic growth in the system of national accounts: the introduction of the previous-year price base in the German statistics

Up to now the real gross domestic product (GDP) has been listed in constant prices (fixed-price base) in the German national accounts (VGR). Both the 1993 revision of the System of National Accounts (SNA) of the United Nations as well as the European system of national accounts (ESVG 1995) recommends the use of an up-to-date price structure for the calculation of the annual volume change of GDP and its components (previous year price base). For the next pending national-accounts revision, which is to be published in April 2005, the previous-year price base will be introduced into the German statistics. This article discusses the two methods of calculating economic growth